Can We Discuss Sex & Gender / Transgender People?

[Emily Lake]

Why do people feel the need to label me a "man"? Why should Emily or Tom or Sigma or my Neighbor nor any person feel the need to label me any given thing (other than perhaps a "queer wizard" which is exactly what I label myself) beyond what directly references relevant realities? Some I would count to label me, and earning all loss of respect that likely entails. Some I would trust to not.

I get irritated, because I genuinely believe that you ardently insisting that you're "trans" because you identify as a "wizard" makes a mockery of actual transgender people. And insisting that you're "gay" because you are in a relationship with a female person who identifies as a man is seriously pushing the boundaries - and it contributes to a growing trend to homophobia and the erosion of people's sexual boundaries.


You identify as something that doesn't exist, cannot exist, and is pure fantasy, and it's dumb and meaningless. At least if you were identifying as a woman, other people would know what the fuck that means, even if they didn't agree completely. But nope, you insist that you're not a "man", you're a "wizard". That means nothing. FFS, I could say I identify as a manticore. Yay. Also means fuck all. But you argue and argue and argue that your identity as a wizard is somehow valid and relevant. It's not, it's useless and pointless and lacks meaning of any sort. You also use your "identity" as a wizard to identify yourself into being both trans. Yay you, you've appropriated someone else's real struggles for your own gratification.

If you want to consider yourself "queer", I don't care, I'm not going to argue with you about that. It's already a pretty nebulous term. At the end of the day, you're a human male who has only had sex with human females. Those are sex-classes, not gender identities. It was you previously insisting that you're "gay" despite not actually, you know, being sexually involved with males of the human species that got my hackles up.

You don't know what or how my transition is shaped. I have not told you because you have no right to know, and you have not asked.

You could ask the actual transgender people here whether what I am is a mockery of them? They know. I've discussed it with them.

Further, maybe you should discuss with allllllllllll the other gay folks I know, have known, continue to know since dating my husband, and divorcing my ex-wife, whether they think I'm 'gay'.

You have also assumed a lot of my sexual history.

I've been raped a few times by people with penises.

All those times the people doing it were "men". I have slept with... Well, it would take me a long time to get really comprehensive with every person with a penis I've had sex with. I've only shared a bed with two women, one of which had a penis and the other with which no sex happened. I've had sex with one person with a vagina in all my life, and he is my husband.

Perhaps you mistake "every person with a vagina I've ever been attracted to came out as a man" with something else? Is it that hard to just assume you don't actually know anything about me?

The fact is, you have defined me out of existence yet here I stand. My statement as to my identity is that it would be nice if you treated me as you would treat, say, Gandalf (or, well, perhaps Radaghast) if they were inexplicably standing before you. Even if you don't believe that thing could exist for such a treatment.

I'm not going to report you here for telling me, wholely embarrassingly inaccurately, what I am as opposed to what the contents of my words are.

Now, there was a question about prison pals...

Report away, you're still not a wizard, and I won't be calling you Harry.

 

[Jarhyn]

Tell me Emily, would you share a prison cell with an assertive but nonviolent person slight of frame with no balls, perhaps guilty of some technological crime, that would do their best to never actually look at your body even if they were forced to share a space with you, excepting odd requests such as "look at this mole"? Would you, throwing up your hands saying "alas what else can we do," throw this smallish nonviolent person with no balls in prison with a bunch of large people with balls and violent histories which include rape, and violent current tense activities that also involve rape?

With no balls? Sure. I generally say "no penis", but a penis and no balls would probably be fine.

Now, let's imagine this person identifies as a "man". Or at the very least does not identify as a woman at all.

Can you hold by this principle still? Does how they identity change how you interact socially with this person?

Edit: I fully admit I have a destination with this line. That destination is, hopefully, you understanding my position in the way I understand it. You can do with it what you want after that. I am going to be uncharacteristically kind, even, within this framework.

How I interact socially with the person I share a prison cell with? Odd line of questioning, but let's roll with it.

If that person wants to be referred to by male pronouns, I don't care, I will do what I can so long as they're decent. If that person originally had a penis and testicles, and has since had their testicles removed, it's accurate to refer to them with the word that means human male. On the other hand, if that person never had testicles but instead had a vagina and uterus, then it's polite fiction. It really doesn't matter.

Beyond that... I don't know what you're looking for by "interact with socially". I don't socially make a distinction between males and females when I choose to interact with them. As a female, I am significantly more wary of unknown males than of unknown females if I am in a position of increased vulnerability. In that situation, however, I don't know what a person identifies as, nor if they have balls. I can only make an assessment based on how they appear.

But this started as a question about PRISON, where the vast majority of prisoners don't get choices about where they are placed. If a person has no balls and wants to be in with the females, and doesn't represent an undue risk to those female humans, I don't care. If that person has a penis and testicles, I don't think they should be ENTITLED to being placed with female humans, regardless of how they identify. I am, however, content to allow case-by-case exceptions provided there's compelling reason.

I did not ask what was "accurate" I asked what you would feel about the situation, how your soul reacts to the idea of.

Ostensibly you feel yourself a moral person and sometimes or even often do things, even ones you seem to find distasteful, based on those morals. I am asking what your morals push you to do.

In a prison cell, you would be fairly immediately aware at any rate.

We can deal with "fertilizers" later.

We can thus far agree, in this paradigm, so far, that "co-ed prisons" are first and foremost possible. You have agreed that it is OK for this person to live in a prison with people born with vaginas, and ovaries.

Now let's expand this: would you be the odd person out in this situation; in a prison with people exactly no more of a threat than this person of rape, assault, or impregnation? you have wholeheartedly agreed you would not feel remiss to be asked to share a cell with this person, would you share a prison with them?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

So was linear time.

 

[TomC]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

It's not difficult to understand.
For most of human history people believed all kinds of things, many of which are false.
Demonstrably false.

Modern understanding of many things is far more sophisticated than the ancient understanding. An understanding more sophisticated now than it was for most of human history is a round earth, orbiting the sun. Also, the recognition that infectious illness isn't caused by supernatural forces, they're the results of tiny parasitic organisms. The fact that people didn't understand these sorts of things until "the present time" doesn't change the fact that they are true. The list of things people understand better than the ancients did is pretty long, really.
Tom

 

[Trausti]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

It's not difficult to understand.
For most of human history people believed all kinds of things, many of which are false.
Demonstrably false.

Modern understanding of many things is far more sophisticated than the ancient understanding. An understanding more sophisticated now than it was for most of human history is a round earth, orbiting the sun. Also, the recognition that infectious illness isn't caused by supernatural forces, they're the results of tiny parasitic organisms. The fact that people didn't understand these sorts of things until "the present time" doesn't change the fact that they are true. The list of things people understand better than the ancients did is pretty long, really.
Tom

You’re suggesting the difference between men and women is superstition?

 

[TomC]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

It's not difficult to understand.
For most of human history people believed all kinds of things, many of which are false.
Demonstrably false.

Modern understanding of many things is far more sophisticated than the ancient understanding. An understanding more sophisticated now than it was for most of human history is a round earth, orbiting the sun. Also, the recognition that infectious illness isn't caused by supernatural forces, they're the results of tiny parasitic organisms. The fact that people didn't understand these sorts of things until "the present time" doesn't change the fact that they are true. The list of things people understand better than the ancients did is pretty long, really.
Tom

You’re suggesting the difference between men and women is superstition?

Nope.
But I can understand why you'd resort to such a strawman argument.

Otherwise, you don't have much.
Tom

 

[Trausti]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

It's not difficult to understand.
For most of human history people believed all kinds of things, many of which are false.
Demonstrably false.

Modern understanding of many things is far more sophisticated than the ancient understanding. An understanding more sophisticated now than it was for most of human history is a round earth, orbiting the sun. Also, the recognition that infectious illness isn't caused by supernatural forces, they're the results of tiny parasitic organisms. The fact that people didn't understand these sorts of things until "the present time" doesn't change the fact that they are true. The list of things people understand better than the ancients did is pretty long, really.
Tom

You’re suggesting the difference between men and women is superstition?

Nope.
But I can understand why you'd resort to such a strawman argument.

Otherwise, you don't have much.
Tom

People don’t need some academic to tell them what they’ve already knew.

 

[TomC]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

It's not difficult to understand.
For most of human history people believed all kinds of things, many of which are false.
Demonstrably false.

Modern understanding of many things is far more sophisticated than the ancient understanding. An understanding more sophisticated now than it was for most of human history is a round earth, orbiting the sun. Also, the recognition that infectious illness isn't caused by supernatural forces, they're the results of tiny parasitic organisms. The fact that people didn't understand these sorts of things until "the present time" doesn't change the fact that they are true. The list of things people understand better than the ancients did is pretty long, really.
Tom

You’re suggesting the difference between men and women is superstition?

Nope.
But I can understand why you'd resort to such a strawman argument.

Otherwise, you don't have much.
Tom

People don’t need some academic to tell them what they’ve already knew.

Well, Bless Your Heart!
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

No, I think it's probably some sort of perception bias. There's probably a term for it, I just don't know what the term is.

Male and female humans are quite dimorphic, and sex is perceivable in an unaltered human with a very high degree of accuracy based on tertiary and secondary sex characteristics. Contrary to the assertions by some, you really do NOT need to see someone's genitalia to determine whether they are male or female. But there are in existence people whose tertiary, and even sometimes secondary, characteristics are ambiguous or fall into an uncertain range. For example, there are males who are small-statured, fine-boned, with narrow shoulders, and little to no body hair. They might be mistaken as female if they're fully clothed. Alternatively, there are females with small breasts, narrow hips, angular facial features, who are unusually tall and might be mistaken for male if they're fully clothed. But those are outliers, and generally speaking, the visual indicators of sex have an incredibly high accuracy rate. Humans can tell an unaltered male from an unaltered female with over a 99% accuracy. That's a phenomenal fit.

But... there are a couple of things that skew perceptions. For one, we have an ideological push that insists that sex is a spectrum and is really hard to tell. That belief tends to promote visual images of people who appear androgynous. Because those visual images are used so much and are so prevalent, it distorts perception of how dimorphic humans really are. It should be an easy reset: leave the internet and go to the grocery store or to a mall. The sex of any adult who walks past is pretty obvious, even if they're all wearing neutral gendered clothing. This is the same kind of thing that happens with news and media always showing the negatives and the bad things happening, it gives people the false impression that those negative events are commonplace and prevalent, rather than exceptions. Which also leads a lot of people to be pretty depressed and pessimistic about the world. But if you shut of the news and actually go out into the world, it's really not as bad as media makes it out to be.

The other thing that is happening is that some people are altering their visual cues. If someone takes exogenous cross-sex hormones, it will change some of the most common indicators of sex - breasts and facial hair. If you add in padding and shaping clothing, stuffers, and cosmetic surgery that alters the shape of the face or throat, it can obscure those innate indicators of sex.

So even though sex itself is a very concrete, clear concept, and is NOT a spectrum... people end up conflating visual secondary and tertiary cues with real biological sex, and they also end up putting too much emphasis on the exceptions and the altered images, so that they end up being perceived as more common than they are.

 

[Trausti]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

It's not difficult to understand.
For most of human history people believed all kinds of things, many of which are false.
Demonstrably false.

Modern understanding of many things is far more sophisticated than the ancient understanding. An understanding more sophisticated now than it was for most of human history is a round earth, orbiting the sun. Also, the recognition that infectious illness isn't caused by supernatural forces, they're the results of tiny parasitic organisms. The fact that people didn't understand these sorts of things until "the present time" doesn't change the fact that they are true. The list of things people understand better than the ancients did is pretty long, really.
Tom

You’re suggesting the difference between men and women is superstition?

Nope.
But I can understand why you'd resort to such a strawman argument.

Otherwise, you don't have much.
Tom

People don’t need some academic to tell them what they’ve already knew.

Well, Bless Your Heart!
Tom

There’s the observation that the academic/priestly class comes up with a grand catechism/theory to explain this or that subject and participation by the hoi polloi is shunned; for simple experience by the average Joe shows the catechism/theory to be bullshit.

 

[Emily Lake]

Now let's expand this: would you be the odd person out in this situation; in a prison with people exactly no more of a threat than this person of rape, assault, or impregnation? you have wholeheartedly agreed you would not feel remiss to be asked to share a cell with this person, would you share a prison with them?

Speaking from the perspective of a female human, I think that most females would be willing to share a cell with a person without testicles. I feel like you're trying to generalize to "no more of a threat" in there, but we might get a bit stuck on that. A male person without testicles is essentially no threat of rape. A male person with testicles may be disinclined to rape, and may not be a high threat of rape, but they are inarguably more of a threat than a person without testicles.

It still may not be comfortable, and it may not be something all women would be willing to accept... but it's going to come down to exactly how big and masculine that person looks. Even if they have no balls, a 6'2" 220 lb male is still intimidating... and for a women who has been subject to rape or domestic violence, that may be extremely frightening, even if that person isn't physically capable of rape or impregnation.

 

[Emily Lake]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

So was linear time.

Show me a mammal that is organized around the production of a third gamete and I'll relent. Until then, sex REMAINS an extremely concrete concept.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

It's not difficult to understand.
For most of human history people believed all kinds of things, many of which are false.
Demonstrably false.

Modern understanding of many things is far more sophisticated than the ancient understanding. An understanding more sophisticated now than it was for most of human history is a round earth, orbiting the sun. Also, the recognition that infectious illness isn't caused by supernatural forces, they're the results of tiny parasitic organisms. The fact that people didn't understand these sorts of things until "the present time" doesn't change the fact that they are true. The list of things people understand better than the ancients did is pretty long, really.
Tom

You’re suggesting the difference between men and women is superstition?

Nope.
But I can understand why you'd resort to such a strawman argument.

Otherwise, you don't have much.
Tom

People don’t need some academic to tell them what they’ve already knew.

Ah yes, the Argument against Authority fallacy.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

So was linear time.

Show me a mammal that is organized around the production of a third gamete and I'll relent. Until then, sex REMAINS an extremely concrete concept.

As long as we ignore the complexity of the brain, I suppose we can pretend that you are correct.

 

[Jarhyn]

Now let's expand this: would you be the odd person out in this situation; in a prison with people exactly no more of a threat than this person of rape, assault, or impregnation? you have wholeheartedly agreed you would not feel remiss to be asked to share a cell with this person, would you share a prison with them?

Speaking from the perspective of a female human, I think that most females would be willing to share a cell with a person without testicles. I feel like you're trying to generalize to "no more of a threat" in there, but we might get a bit stuck on that. A male person without testicles is essentially no threat of rape. A male person with testicles may be disinclined to rape, and may not be a high threat of rape, but they are inarguably more of a threat than a person without testicles.

It still may not be comfortable, and it may not be something all women would be willing to accept... but it's going to come down to exactly how big and masculine that person looks. Even if they have no balls, a 6'2" 220 lb male is still intimidating... and for a women who has been subject to rape or domestic violence, that may be extremely frightening, even if that person isn't physically capable of rape or impregnation.

I described the person for you. That person.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It still may not be comfortable, and it may not be something all women would be willing to accept... but it's going to come down to exactly how big and masculine that person looks. Even if they have no balls, a 6'2" 220 lb male is still intimidating... and for a women who has been subject to rape or domestic violence, that may be extremely frightening, even if that person isn't physically capable of rape or impregnation.

So a large woman can beat the crap out of a another woman inmate. A large man can rape a smaller man. But if a man who isn't neurologically a man is in a cell with a woman inmate... we've got problems? So what about the 6'2" "guy"? Is he not capable of being beaten by a woman?

Also, is it impossible to assign equivalent cases in a prison? IE, the 6'2" not male in with the woman that can beat him, maybe even sodomize him? That work for you?

 

[Trausti]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

No, I think it's probably some sort of perception bias. There's probably a term for it, I just don't know what the term is.

Male and female humans are quite dimorphic, and sex is perceivable in an unaltered human with a very high degree of accuracy based on tertiary and secondary sex characteristics. Contrary to the assertions by some, you really do NOT need to see someone's genitalia to determine whether they are male or female. But there are in existence people whose tertiary, and even sometimes secondary, characteristics are ambiguous or fall into an uncertain range. For example, there are males who are small-statured, fine-boned, with narrow shoulders, and little to no body hair. They might be mistaken as female if they're fully clothed. Alternatively, there are females with small breasts, narrow hips, angular facial features, who are unusually tall and might be mistaken for male if they're fully clothed. But those are outliers, and generally speaking, the visual indicators of sex have an incredibly high accuracy rate. Humans can tell an unaltered male from an unaltered female with over a 99% accuracy. That's a phenomenal fit.

But... there are a couple of things that skew perceptions. For one, we have an ideological push that insists that sex is a spectrum and is really hard to tell. That belief tends to promote visual images of people who appear androgynous. Because those visual images are used so much and are so prevalent, it distorts perception of how dimorphic humans really are. It should be an easy reset: leave the internet and go to the grocery store or to a mall. The sex of any adult who walks past is pretty obvious, even if they're all wearing neutral gendered clothing. This is the same kind of thing that happens with news and media always showing the negatives and the bad things happening, it gives people the false impression that those negative events are commonplace and prevalent, rather than exceptions. Which also leads a lot of people to be pretty depressed and pessimistic about the world. But if you shut of the news and actually go out into the world, it's really not as bad as media makes it out to be.

The other thing that is happening is that some people are altering their visual cues. If someone takes exogenous cross-sex hormones, it will change some of the most common indicators of sex - breasts and facial hair. If you add in padding and shaping clothing, stuffers, and cosmetic surgery that alters the shape of the face or throat, it can obscure those innate indicators of sex.

So even though sex itself is a very concrete, clear concept, and is NOT a spectrum... people end up conflating visual secondary and tertiary cues with real biological sex, and they also end up putting too much emphasis on the exceptions and the altered images, so that they end up being perceived as more common than they are.

That’s all well and good. But I’d surmise the reason is that transsexuals have, quite remarkably, ascended to cultural/political heights. Mouthing such idiocy as there being little difference between the sexes is a matter of signaling allegiance to the cultural power de jour. Similar to authoritarian states where people repeat the approved slogans but know it’s all a fraud. That heterosexuals, gays, and lesbians have little interest in intimacy with trans folks is evidence enough that no one actually believes the party’s slogans.

 

[Trausti]

You aren't asking anything, you are demanding that male and female labels remain rigid, when in reality, they aren't as rigid or as convenient as we'd prefer.

Male and female are pretty concrete concepts.

It’s curious that humans had no difficulty distinguishing men and women up to our present time. Now there are folks who display a cognitive deficit in simple pattern recognition. Is it something in the water? The soy?

It's not difficult to understand.
For most of human history people believed all kinds of things, many of which are false.
Demonstrably false.

Modern understanding of many things is far more sophisticated than the ancient understanding. An understanding more sophisticated now than it was for most of human history is a round earth, orbiting the sun. Also, the recognition that infectious illness isn't caused by supernatural forces, they're the results of tiny parasitic organisms. The fact that people didn't understand these sorts of things until "the present time" doesn't change the fact that they are true. The list of things people understand better than the ancients did is pretty long, really.
Tom

You’re suggesting the difference between men and women is superstition?

Nope.
But I can understand why you'd resort to such a strawman argument.

Otherwise, you don't have much.
Tom

People don’t need some academic to tell them what they’ve already knew.

Ah yes, the Argument against Authority fallacy.

When the academics change definitions of commonly understood words to fit a political narrative, it’s not a fallacy to point out the mendacity.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

People don’t need some academic to tell them what they’ve already knew.

Ah yes, the Argument against Authority fallacy.

When the academics change definitions of commonly understood words to fit a political narrative, it’s not a fallacy to point out the mendacity.

Strawman fallacy. A few more Trausti posts and I'll have BINGO.

 

[Trausti]

Strawman fallacy. A few more Trausti posts and I'll have BINGO.

This kinda hits the point. Those braying that the distinction between male and female is blurred are just dishonest. They can’t directly support their position so we get this.