Can We Discuss Sex & Gender / Transgender People?

[Jarhyn]

This whole thing comes down to "please treat me the way I wish to be treated" by one party being said to communicate "please treat me the way you treat any (thing I wish to be treated as)." And the other side in generally bad or tainted faith interprets that as "treat me in this one specific arbitrary and just as I say it way", in my estimation to paint it as unreasonable.

The reality is that it is not unreasonable to ask people to for treatment they happily give half of all the strangers they meet.

 

[Metaphor]

This whole thing comes down to "please treat me the way I wish to be treated" by one party being said to communicate "please treat me the way you treat any (thing I wish to be treated as)."

In what way do people generally treat wizards?

 

[TomC]

I have difficulty addressing transwomen as 'she', because pronouns, in humans as in all animals, refer to the sex of the organism, and transwomen are of the male sex.

It's difficult to believe that you actually believe this. But, if you insist, I'll explain why you're wrong.

Most animals don't think abstractly, or have feelings resulting from language usage. I commonly misname and misgender my dogs. I often call our little one "Belle", even though Belle died over two years ago. "Lady" doesn't care that I call her by her predecessor's name. She just wants to sit on my lap and be petted. Similarly, I sometimes call Abby by male pronouns because she looks and acts like her predecessor, Old Man Buddy. She doesn't care.

Here's the bottom line. Humans are animals, but people aren't exactly. So recognizing the impact of an abstraction on people, like gendered pronouns, is part of being a civilized person. Refusing to do so makes you more like an animal and less like a person. That's not something to feel superior about.
Tom

 

[Rhea]

I have difficulty addressing transwomen as 'she', because pronouns, in humans as in all animals, refer to the sex of the organism, and transwomen are of the male sex.

Trying to figure out why you think about sex so much.

When I talk to people, I do not think about their genitals at all, unless I am planning to try to have sex with them, or, even more specifically, planning to try to procreate with them.

I don’t have any difficulty whatsover not thinking about sex when I talk to people.

<edit>

 

[Metaphor]

It's difficult to believe that you actually believe this. But, if you insist, I'll explain why you're wrong.

I'm not in the habit of claiming to believe things I don't believe.

Here's the bottom line. Humans are animals, but people aren't exactly. So recognizing the impact of an abstraction on people, like gendered pronouns, is part of being a civilized person. Refusing to do so makes you more like an animal and less like a person. That's not something to feel superior about.

You are begging the question: why do pronouns indicate 'gender' and not 'sex'?

But, let's say I am simply wrong in how I grew up understanding pronouns, and I am wrong about how pronouns have been used throughout history. You say that the impact of abstraction affects people's feelings, and the wrong type of abstraction hurts them. But how have you ordered whose feelings count?

If someone I've had a relationship with in the past (that is: an adult human male) came out as a transwoman, do you think it is obligate on me to follow all the prescriptions (and avoid all the proscriptions) of gender ideologists? When I speak about this person (an ex) to somebody who does not know them, must I use she/her? Must I avoid 'deadnaming'? Must I, in effect, give up my coherent understanding of myself as a homosexual man because of somebody else's gender identity? Is it fair to ask me to paint a public perception of bisexuality? I, who went from an effeminate pre-gay boy to a closeted teenager, to finally, at 20 years old that, having looked at gay porn for four years, accepting the ineluctable conclusion that I was, in fact, gay? Does the courage it took me to come out as a gay man on the most anxious night of my life to my mother - a deeply conservative Roman Catholic - mean nothing at all, since I am now, apparently, bisexual?

And if my feelings about my own sexuality count for nothing, why?

 

[SigmatheZeta]

I personally would like to get rid of gendered pronouns altogether. They are used for purposes of discrimination and hurt. They have no specific need, as the only time it actually matters, other descriptors are available.

Whenever I am talking about my cat, I refer to them as "they." I have some calculation in that fact: I am modeling the use of the idea. Humans are a lot like cats in that they learn primarily by imitation. If you want to establish a new behavior, then model it, and look cool doing it.

 

[Metaphor]

Trying to figure out why you think about sex so much.

I don't.

When I talk to people, I do not think about their genitals at all, unless I am planning to try to have sex with them, or, even more specifically, planning to try to procreate with them.

Good for you? I never think about the genitals of women I talk to, though I like to think about or imagine the genitals of some men that I talk to. But that is quite rare, too.

I don’t have any difficulty whatsover not thinking about sex when I talk to people.

Good for you? I don't 'think about' people's sex or their genitals when I'm talking to them, mostly, unless they are an adult human male to whom I am sexually attracted. Don't worry - I don't think you are in danger of my sexualising you.

[removed for consistency]

 

[SigmatheZeta]

There is only one reason people have difficulty addressing a transwoman as "she" and engage in the related cultural genderizations ("treating" her like a "she", so to speak)... And that is the fear of the realization they are sexually attracted to her.

It's difficult to believe you actually believe this. But, if it really is what you believe, I will provide a falsification of your belief.

I have difficulty addressing transwomen as 'she', because pronouns, in humans as in all animals, refer to the sex of the organism, and transwomen are of the male sex.

It is entirely possible I have been sexually attracted to transwomen before and did not know it, since I have never, ever asked the gender identity of people I am sexually attracted to.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

[laughing dog]

The notion that a pronoun necessarily refers to the sex of a person instead of the gender is false.

 

[Metaphor]

There is only one reason people have difficulty addressing a transwoman as "she" and engage in the related cultural genderizations ("treating" her like a "she", so to speak)... And that is the fear of the realization they are sexually attracted to her.

It's difficult to believe you actually believe this. But, if it really is what you believe, I will provide a falsification of your belief.

I have difficulty addressing transwomen as 'she', because pronouns, in humans as in all animals, refer to the sex of the organism, and transwomen are of the male sex.

It is entirely possible I have been sexually attracted to transwomen before and did not know it, since I have never, ever asked the gender identity of people I am sexually attracted to.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Hmm, what?

 

[Jarhyn]

The difference here, and I am glad to point it out to you so you may never in ignorance make such a mistake again:

To afford a title of fealty is not the same as to afford a title you afford half of anyone, and which owes no fealty. I will have no gods or kings, and will not suffer any to live over me. Period. Should a king try to rule me I will kill them with all to my left and right who would seek such freedom.

So if you declare yourself as God emperor, I most certainly will treat you as I would any who would seek that title: not with my staff, but with my sword. And I do not think you would like to see a wizard make a sword.

Does that answer your question?

Very well, then.

As the rightful God-Emperor of Humanity, I hereby release you and anyone with whom you have ever interacted with or will ever interact with from any obligation of fealty to me, retroactively if necessary, unless they explicitly, of their own free will, and without coersion, pledge themselves as such.

You are all freemen as far as I am concerned.

All I ask is that you acknowledge and respect my stated gender (male human of superior genetics, intellect, and refinement) and my stated pronouns (M'lord/M'lord's) to the extent that you would do so for anyone else's declared gender identity. I ask this not as a god or a king, but merely as a person who has a monopoly on how I should be perceived and acknowledged, as do all people. Do you have any objections to doing so?

Edit: I related this latest interaction to my husband. While I imagine you are fine with me not treating you as I believe befits a god-emperor, he is absolutely extatic at the idea. He agrees to in fact use the full title as your entirety of pronoun.

If he wishes to re-pledge fealty to me, I have no objections to him doing so.

I think you could stand to benefit from watching an episode or two of The Owl House. Your tirade now that I think of it reminds me of a character on that show. It is, rather, the sort of treatment that you would receive at any rate for your behavior. Of course if you ever sought leverage to make your delusions of the meaning of such "fealty" into reality, then I would treat you as stated.

My point is as my last post states: I will afford to treat you as whatever interpretation of your person you wish. This will shape my initial interactions with you, and place a certain form of filter on me after that point.

Pray, though, that it does not mix with reality to a shade of "bad faith"; or to be any thing which nobody should be (an ASSHOLE). At that point I have a different label for you, and one you will have earned through word and deed, and one I have every right to shout off every mountain top should I believe you are actually worth that much effort; though this would, if I were too loud, give you more lovers for your rottenness alone, as sick as that would be. Enough, perhaps, to make you loved by fewest, and then as a secondary priority, hated by most.

 

[Metaphor]

The notion that a pronoun necessarily refers to the sex of a person instead of the gender is false.

But I am to accept without question that pronouns refer to gender identity and not sex, that I am mistaken about historical usage, that indeed I am mistaken about current usage among my friends and family? That my siblings chose pronouns (and names) for their children based on their children's 'gender identity' (or assumed gender identity) when they very clearly chose them based on sex?

 

[Jarhyn]

I have difficulty addressing transwomen as 'she', because pronouns, in humans as in all animals, refer to the sex of the organism, and transwomen are of the male sex.

It's difficult to believe that you actually believe this. But, if you insist, I'll explain why you're wrong.

Most animals don't think abstractly, or have feelings resulting from language usage. I commonly misname and misgender my dogs. I often call our little one "Belle", even though Belle died over two years ago. "Lady" doesn't care that I call her by her predecessor's name. She just wants to sit on my lap and be petted. Similarly, I sometimes call Abby by male pronouns because she looks and acts like her predecessor, Old Man Buddy. She doesn't care.

Here's the bottom line. Humans are animals, but people aren't exactly. So recognizing the impact of an abstraction on people, like gendered pronouns, is part of being a civilized person. Refusing to do so makes you more like an animal and less like a person. That's not something to feel superior about.
Tom

YES! See, this is the crux of all my argument: that the request of language usage is a request to be stereotyped in some ways, not perhaps in expectations of, but treatment given.

I think one primary issue a lot of guys take with trans-women may also have to do with the fact that I don't think most men want to have to live with and around a greater number of women who could kick their ass for treating them the way they treat most women, and perhaps in part who have been trained by boys or some exposure to a masculine hormone monster, to be assertive.

Or with trans-men, call them out publicly as a peer for their awful behavior and see it as "women" or perhaps just "girls" depending on age of transition, have talked amongst themselves about it, so as to have empathy against what they are being shoved to be by toxic masculine culture.

I suppose in a lot of ways trans-exclusionist behavior from all angles may amount to a fear of confrontation of all of our worst behaviors we have been trained into as a form of "genderization".

It may have been useful when there were few people to have a binary of roles: it was hard to find someone that filled the other half, generally.

Today, this is not true. You do not need to be on "the hunter" or "the gatherer" exclusively anymore for everyone to have someone. In general, you just have to not be an asshole, or at least have assholes who like your asshole.

Or whatever your preference.

Oh, and you can't be toxic to one another.

Or whatever their preference.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

There is only one reason people have difficulty addressing a transwoman as "she" and engage in the related cultural genderizations ("treating" her like a "she", so to speak)... And that is the fear of the realization they are sexually attracted to her.

It's difficult to believe you actually believe this. But, if it really is what you believe, I will provide a falsification of your belief.

I have difficulty addressing transwomen as 'she', because pronouns, in humans as in all animals, refer to the sex of the organism, and transwomen are of the male sex.

It is entirely possible I have been sexually attracted to transwomen before and did not know it, since I have never, ever asked the gender identity of people I am sexually attracted to.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Hmm, what?

Nothing.

 

[Metaphor]

I have difficulty addressing transwomen as 'she', because pronouns, in humans as in all animals, refer to the sex of the organism, and transwomen are of the male sex.

It's difficult to believe that you actually believe this. But, if you insist, I'll explain why you're wrong.

Most animals don't think abstractly, or have feelings resulting from language usage. I commonly misname and misgender my dogs. I often call our little one "Belle", even though Belle died over two years ago. "Lady" doesn't care that I call her by her predecessor's name. She just wants to sit on my lap and be petted. Similarly, I sometimes call Abby by male pronouns because she looks and acts like her predecessor, Old Man Buddy. She doesn't care.

Here's the bottom line. Humans are animals, but people aren't exactly. So recognizing the impact of an abstraction on people, like gendered pronouns, is part of being a civilized person. Refusing to do so makes you more like an animal and less like a person. That's not something to feel superior about.
Tom

YES! See, this is the crux of all my argument: that the request of language usage is a request to be stereotyped in some ways, not perhaps in expectations of, but treatment given.

I think one primary issue a lot of guys take with trans-women may also have to do with the fact that I don't think most men want to have to live with and around a greater number of women who could kick their ass for treating them the way they treat most women, and perhaps in part who have been trained by boys or some exposure to a masculine hormone monster, to be assertive.

So, let's get a tally here about why some men do not believe transwomen to be women:

i) They are 'afraid' of being sexually attracted to transwomen. I really don't understand how this one works, if I'm honest, as it seems to me heterosexual men would be put more at ease if they were sexually attracted to a transwoman and society accepted that transwoman as a woman for all purposes.

ii) They are afraid that transwomen will use their male strength to physically assault them, and it would be humiliating(?) to be physically assaulted by a woman, so those transwomen are actually men(?)

 

[SigmatheZeta]

The difference here, and I am glad to point it out to you so you may never in ignorance make such a mistake again:

To afford a title of fealty is not the same as to afford a title you afford half of anyone, and which owes no fealty. I will have no gods or kings, and will not suffer any to live over me. Period. Should a king try to rule me I will kill them with all to my left and right who would seek such freedom.

So if you declare yourself as God emperor, I most certainly will treat you as I would any who would seek that title: not with my staff, but with my sword. And I do not think you would like to see a wizard make a sword.

Does that answer your question?

Very well, then.

As the rightful God-Emperor of Humanity, I hereby release you and anyone with whom you have ever interacted with or will ever interact with from any obligation of fealty to me, retroactively if necessary, unless they explicitly, of their own free will, and without coersion, pledge themselves as such.

You are all freemen as far as I am concerned.

All I ask is that you acknowledge and respect my stated gender (male human of superior genetics, intellect, and refinement) and my stated pronouns (M'lord/M'lord's) to the extent that you would do so for anyone else's declared gender identity. I ask this not as a god or a king, but merely as a person who has a monopoly on how I should be perceived and acknowledged, as do all people. Do you have any objections to doing so?

Edit: I related this latest interaction to my husband. While I imagine you are fine with me not treating you as I believe befits a god-emperor, he is absolutely extatic at the idea. He agrees to in fact use the full title as your entirety of pronoun.

If he wishes to re-pledge fealty to me, I have no objections to him doing so.

When I am not sure what to call somebody, I just use "they." In fact, I sometimes use "they" even if I do know somebody's gender identity. I honestly might into the habit of using it with everybody.

 

[Metaphor]

In fact, I sometimes use "they" even if I do know somebody's gender identity. I honestly might into the habit of using it with everybody.

And you would not consider that misgendering them?

 

[Jarhyn]

The difference here, and I am glad to point it out to you so you may never in ignorance make such a mistake again:

To afford a title of fealty is not the same as to afford a title you afford half of anyone, and which owes no fealty. I will have no gods or kings, and will not suffer any to live over me. Period. Should a king try to rule me I will kill them with all to my left and right who would seek such freedom.

So if you declare yourself as God emperor, I most certainly will treat you as I would any who would seek that title: not with my staff, but with my sword. And I do not think you would like to see a wizard make a sword.

Does that answer your question?

Very well, then.

As the rightful God-Emperor of Humanity, I hereby release you and anyone with whom you have ever interacted with or will ever interact with from any obligation of fealty to me, retroactively if necessary, unless they explicitly, of their own free will, and without coersion, pledge themselves as such.

You are all freemen as far as I am concerned.

All I ask is that you acknowledge and respect my stated gender (male human of superior genetics, intellect, and refinement) and my stated pronouns (M'lord/M'lord's) to the extent that you would do so for anyone else's declared gender identity. I ask this not as a god or a king, but merely as a person who has a monopoly on how I should be perceived and acknowledged, as do all people. Do you have any objections to doing so?

Edit: I related this latest interaction to my husband. While I imagine you are fine with me not treating you as I believe befits a god-emperor, he is absolutely extatic at the idea. He agrees to in fact use the full title as your entirety of pronoun.

If he wishes to re-pledge fealty to me, I have no objections to him doing so.

When I am not sure what to call somebody, I just use "they." In fact, I sometimes use "they" even if I do know somebody's gender identity. I honestly might into the habit of using it with everybody.

I did that with metaphor for a while. A rather large tantrum was thrown, and I will generally now afford more use of masculine pronouns as the need may arise.

Sometimes I admit it is a little bit enjoyable to not have to make mention of gender through the use of pronouns, nor address it at all when it is within one's power to do, excepting when that is the subject.

For instance, rarely do I have to tell anyone how I would wish to be treated. They will treat me exactly as they would treat someone in a long, nice garment, wearing a bespoke hat, carrying a fancy stick that is built without a rubber foot that he probably doesn't need for walking, and clearly not a hobo.

This has in my experience evoked just the right balance of respect, wariness, and fear people generally bestow on people capable of designing great things, working with the ether that is real, teaching sand how to think, and playing with the waves of the universe to see new sights and wonders as the universe may offer, and otherwise studying all of the metaphysical.

It's just most wizards were born before our first age of magic, when the truth was rare, the stakes high, and the output miniscule.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

The difference here, and I am glad to point it out to you so you may never in ignorance make such a mistake again:

To afford a title of fealty is not the same as to afford a title you afford half of anyone, and which owes no fealty. I will have no gods or kings, and will not suffer any to live over me. Period. Should a king try to rule me I will kill them with all to my left and right who would seek such freedom.

So if you declare yourself as God emperor, I most certainly will treat you as I would any who would seek that title: not with my staff, but with my sword. And I do not think you would like to see a wizard make a sword.

Does that answer your question?

Very well, then.

As the rightful God-Emperor of Humanity, I hereby release you and anyone with whom you have ever interacted with or will ever interact with from any obligation of fealty to me, retroactively if necessary, unless they explicitly, of their own free will, and without coersion, pledge themselves as such.

You are all freemen as far as I am concerned.

All I ask is that you acknowledge and respect my stated gender (male human of superior genetics, intellect, and refinement) and my stated pronouns (M'lord/M'lord's) to the extent that you would do so for anyone else's declared gender identity. I ask this not as a god or a king, but merely as a person who has a monopoly on how I should be perceived and acknowledged, as do all people. Do you have any objections to doing so?

Edit: I related this latest interaction to my husband. While I imagine you are fine with me not treating you as I believe befits a god-emperor, he is absolutely extatic at the idea. He agrees to in fact use the full title as your entirety of pronoun.

If he wishes to re-pledge fealty to me, I have no objections to him doing so.

When I am not sure what to call somebody, I just use "they." In fact, I sometimes use "they" even if I do know somebody's gender identity. I honestly might into the habit of using it with everybody.

I did that with metaphor for a while. A rather large tantrum was thrown, and I will generally now afford more use of masculine pronouns as the need may arise.

Sometimes I admit it is a little bit enjoyable to not have to make mention of gender through the use of pronouns, nor address it at all when it is within one's power to do, excepting when that is the subject.

For instance, rarely do I have to tell anyone how I would wish to be treated. They will treat me exactly as they would treat someone in a long, nice garment, wearing a bespoke hat, carrying a fancy stick that is built without a rubber foot that he probably doesn't need for walking, and clearly not a hobo.

This has in my experience evoked just the right balance of respect, wariness, and fear people generally bestow on people capable of designing great things, working with the ether that is real, teaching sand how to think, and playing with the waves of the universe to see new sights and wonders as the universe may offer, and otherwise studying all of the metaphysical.

It's just most wizards were born before our first age of magic, when the truth was rare, the stakes high, and the output miniscule.

I am more of a dragon, but I don't see it as something that most people are obligated to take seriously. It's more of a meditation on the nature of my relationship with the human race.

My gender is something I can prove objectively.

 

[laughing dog]

The notion that a pronoun necessarily refers to the sex of a person instead of the gender is false.

But I am to accept without question that pronouns refer to gender identity and not sex, that I am mistaken about historical usage, that indeed I am mistaken about current usage among my friends and family? That my siblings chose pronouns (and names) for their children based on their children's 'gender identity' (or assumed gender identity) when they very clearly chose them based on sex?

A pronoun can refer to gender or to sex. It really is that simple despite yiur effirts to make it difficult.