Colorado club shooter is non-binary, CNN repeatedly misgenders them.

[jab]

I was not born gay.

How can you state that do confidently?

It's easy to state that confidently. No baby has a sexual orientation.

I'm not claiming to know anything important. But I can see a ton of different influences that might result in you identifying as a homosexual male, when they all come together to result in you the individual.
Genetics
Epigenetics
Chemical environment
Early childhood experiences
Later experiences

I dunno. I'm certain that nobody else does either.
Same with trans. I've no idea why anyone would want to change their sex identity(gender). That makes no sense to me, except possibly females preferring to be men. Being a man is way better. I do get that part, sorta.

Somethings happened that resulted in you(and me) being abnormal, concerning orientation. I tried very hard to be normal, it just didn't work.

Same thing with trans people. I don't get it any better than my dad understood my homosexual tendencies. He got over it. Because he was a decent human being.
Tom

I did not say I had any choice in being gay. In fact, I do not believe in libertarian free will.

I am also undecided about whether it was predestined, given my genetics. I do not know if in a different environment, I would have been not gay. It doesn't matter though. Babies do not have a sexual orientation. I was not born gay, nor was anyone, ever.

I basically agree with Metaphor here, and on a personal level and as someone who has been thinking about this for 50+ years.

 

[jab]

It really pisses me off that you're vaguely claiming that "science" or "linguistics" or "history" justify your bigoted opinions about gender, while displaying zero familiarity with any of those subjects. Even English, the language we're all typing in, did not consistently link grammatical to social gender until relatively recently in its history, let alone "sex", a concept whose modern connotations of strict biological determinism existed no more or less in the imagination of the Medieval Englishman than gender did. Perspectives on masculinity and femininity were wildly different even just a few centuries back let alone for "all time". The variability of gender perspectives over time is part of the reason scientists started to distinguish between sex and gender in the first place.

The first distinctions between sex and gender that I heard of were being made by feminists in the 1970s. It is an importnt and liberating conceptual distinction, one which Conservatives and gender essentialists haven't liked at all.

 

[jab]

I think it is rather cavalier to proclaim a binary when there are such messy shades of grey.

Sex is binary, Jarhyn. There are two, and only two, gamete types in humans. There is no third reproductive strategy.

So what is an XXY person? What's an XYY person? What's a female-appearing XY person? What's an approximately-female XY person that develops a penis at puberty?

People said the same bullshit you did, but about homosexuals, claiming that it was not possible for someone to be born gay, too,

It is impossible. Babies don't have a sexual orientation.

And babies don't have boobs, either. Does that mean none can be female? The system can be there but dormant.

No you should not. The context in the title gives singular "shooter", so anyone whom the public education system has not utterly failed should be fine.

No. The pronoun has introduced ambiguities. For example, some news stories are ambiguous about whether 'they' refers to the shooter alone, or the shooter and his legal team.

Yeah, "they" is one of those oddball words that is both singular and plural. Blame English for this problem--it long predates the trans movement. (Or blame English for having separate singular/plural versions. Chinese doesn't suffer for the lack of word modification, it's not a necessary feature for a language to have. (But native Chinese speakers do suffer for it when trying to learn languages that do modify words. On the other hand, we suffer from it when trying to learn languages that have more forms or different forms than we do.)

re "babies don't have boobs" True, but i take it you never changed a baby's diaper.
To complicate Metaphor's point about he and she being traditionally "sex" pronouns, in those olden times that are of no interest to Tom, babies and toddlers were often called "it" in English. See for instance the dialogue that Shakespeare, a famous bisexual adult male and father of 3, writes for the Nurse when she is reminiscing about weaning Juliet, about Juliet's reaction when the Nurse and her husband talking about how Juliet will grow up to be a heterosexual women in act 1, scene 3. In the same scene, when referring to the presently almost- 14-yr. old Juliet whom the Nurse and Juliet's mother are priming for marriage, the Nurse uses "she". And of course to complicate things further, all three actors in the scene in the original 1590s production were cross-dressing biological males.

 

[jab]

What is sex essentialism, and why is it (as you seem to imply) wrong

Sex essentialism is the belief that some concept of "sex" creates some essential or material reality of how one behaves or acts. It is to say "female" therefore "values modesty".

Women are sex-segregated from men in situations where close proximity in a confined or intimate space is expected

This is an "is". It does not establish "ought". Banging on about what people have done in the past does not justify doing it in either the present or the future.

people were generally uncomfortable

Except that this is not even a rule the world over. Evidence yields that this discomfort is a function of something entirely absent from the genetic template.

Again, "is" does not inform "ought".

Males are also larger and more violent

People largely effected by testosterone are  generally larger and more violent.

This does not justify treating any given individual as "larger" and "more violent", unless they, as an individual, are either larger or more violent than the norm, and it only justifies treating them as exactly as large and violent as they are, no more and no less.

Yes, I have done the act that your religion calls 'misgendering'.

Good. Now was that so hard?

What I've done is certainly not wrong, but it does not do what you claim. It does not ascribe a gender to somebody contra their beliefs about their own gender. It just doesn't.

Yes, it does. It claims in equal parts that their beliefs about their won gender are wrong, and that your beliefs about their gender are right.

The government has no right to do that, especially if you claim it is

It is my moral duty to keep doing what you call 'misgendering', even when, out of politeness, I might have used the wrong-sex pronouns for somebody

This forum must be so oppressing to your moral duties then I guess.

Thankfully, the failed tack of your moral compass does not define this place.

Then you are guilty of misgendering

Yes! I AM! How kind of you to point that out. I have fully admitted to explicit misgendering, the instance of the time I called you "she" and "her".

I apologize and continue to feel bad over having done that. It was wrong of me.

As has been discussed at long length I find that it is more than appropriate to treat someone as ambiguous, when they claim they lack gender.

It is not reasonable to assume offense when someone says "they are a great person" when they could have said "he Is a great man". Both are true statements with one being more general.

Sex is a binary, because there are only two gamete types.

Sex is not binary because as a generalization, it is a bad approximation of what is actually going on with respect to a set of loosely related and often comorbid minutiae of which the gamete produced is only a single facet of the whole.

you continually, repeatedly use "it's" when you mean "its"

No, my autocorrect has it's quirks, and as it's prone to do that and while it's not hard to go back and delete apostrophes, it's also generally not worth my time. So you'll have to deal with the it's I'm afraid.

Also of all my autocorrect's flaws, it's failure to process my omission of an apostrophe occasionally gets people to jump the shark on grammar Nazi bullshit and TROLOLOL.

And mammals have a binary sexual reproductive strategy. Produce small motile gametes or large sessile ones

Not all of us...

I know a number of people, as has been mentioned, that you would object to calling anything but women, who have done nothing of the sort. And of those you would insist as, men as well...

Not that you do a thing with those gametes anyway.

If you are now trying to claim sex is not real, good luck with that.

Sex is not real. It's an approximal simplification of something that is real, a set of largely but not necessarily comorbid traits.

Societies organised themselves around the sex binary.

Societies organized themselves around slavery and racism too. It doesn't make it fundamentally right to have done so.

what you call "sex essentialism", I would call "gender essentialism".

 

[TomC]

To complicate Metaphor's point about he and she being traditionally "sex" pronouns, in those olden times that are of no interest to Tom, babies and toddlers were often called "it" in English.

I'm curious.
Am I the Tom you are referring to in this sentence?
Tom

 

[southernhybrid]

The more I read about the different between sex and gender, the more confused I become. But, if someone feels better being addressed by they, it's not a big deal. I just won't use it as the subject of a sentence. So, if a person I know is nonbinary, I'll just use "their" name as the subject of the sentence, instead of a pronoun.

I read one article that gave scientific evidence that gender isn't totally a social construct, although gender can be influenced by social things and gender roles. It gave an example of a study where "boys" usually preferred traditional boy toys and "girls" usually preferred traditional girl toys, even when mothers tried to get them to see both gender roles as equal. I can relate to that because I did that with my own son back in the 70s. I tried to get him to play with dolls when he was very young, but he would always take the doll clothing off and then use the doll like a throw toy. He's a gentle person, not the least bit aggressive, and according to what I've read, aggressive is a stereotypical male gender trait


I do wish the gender ID thing could be more easily clarified. It almost seems like a trendy thing over the past several years. I was once told many years ago, by a career counselor, that I had some male like qualities that made it difficult for me in my role as a nurse, but not once in my life have I ever cared about how I was perceived when it came to my gender. A former friend who was sort of butch, used to call me a "girlie girl". Whatever! I don't dress in feminized clothing. I guess she just saw me as more feminine that she was herself. Why is being assertive associated with the male gender? Why is being nurturing associated with the female gender? I think part of the problem is that we perceive certain qualities as male or female. It shouldn't be that way.

Still, if one loves the idea or strongly feels that they are gender fluid, what business is if of mine? I just never realized that gender is so important to some people. While I've always identified as female, I really wouldn't give a shit if someone called me by the wrong gender. That is probably why I'm having so much trouble understanding why this issue has become so important to some.

I'm not talking about transgender. That's easy to understand. The brain matter doesn't always match up with the body parts. Those folks should be given the option to transition and be accepted for who they are. It's just a little harder to understand the concept of being gender fluid. Actually, it's becoming difficult to understand what the term gender even means.

But, if someone wants to be called a they, no problem. I guess it all comes down to whatever makes you feel happy with yourself, regardless if I understand it or not.

 

[Oleg]

I'm not talking about transgender. That's easy to understand. The brain matter doesn't always match up with the body parts. Those folks should be given the option to transition and be accepted for who they are. It's just a little harder to understand the concept of being gender fluid. Actually, it's becoming difficult to understand what the term gender even means.

Narcissism. It’s all narcissism. It’s the current way to be unique and important. Everyone must bow. But in reality it’s completely meaningless. The only categories that matter are male / female and gay / straight / bi.

 

[Metaphor]

Once again, another important misstep in the world brought to the attention of Internet Infidels: a persistent misuse of a pronoun to describe an alleged mass murderer by a news organization.

Misgendering is violence.

um--violence--really? As someone who has been gay bashed with verbal queer insults; and earlier as a child of fundamentalist parents, spanked, I would prefer simply to be insulted, bad as that was--it was not violence.
The correct formulation is "misgendering can lead to violence/ can be a dog whistle inviting violence." According to you, what CNN did to the alleged gunperson was the same as what said gunperson allegedly did in the Colorado nightclub.

jab you might not be as familiar with my posting history as some others, but I do not believe what thew gender ideologist camp calls 'misgendering', is violence. That is the belief of the gender ideologist camp: that words not only inevitably lead to violence but are violence themselves.

I am very ideologically close to being a free speech absolutist.

 

[Metaphor]

To complicate Metaphor's point about he and she being traditionally "sex" pronouns, in those olden times that are of no interest to Tom, babies and toddlers were often called "it" in English.

We still call babies 'it'--when we don't know the sex of the baby.

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

But afterwards, having been told the sex of the baby, it would be a faux pas to continue referring to the baby as 'it'.

"Oh, he's gorgeous".

 

[Metaphor]

I'm not talking about transgender. That's easy to understand. The brain matter doesn't always match up with the body parts. Those folks should be given the option to transition and be accepted for who they are. It's just a little harder to understand the concept of being gender fluid. Actually, it's becoming difficult to understand what the term gender even means.

Narcissism. It’s all narcissism. It’s the current way to be unique and important. Everyone must bow. But in reality it’s completely meaningless. The only categories that matter are male / female and gay / straight / bi.

Identifying with the other sex, if you have gender dysphoria, I can see as a coping mechanism.

But identifying as "Non-binary" seems to me an exercise in narcissism. It is somebody who needs to be the specialest snowflake. And it requires no change in any perceivable appearance or behaviour--because of course there is no non-binary sex.

I know a woman who calls herself 'they/them', and even has adopted the label 'queer' for herself. She is an attractive, feminine, heterosexual woman who has only ever been in monogamous relationships with men. Of course, she isn't remotely bisexual or lesbian, and even if she pretended she were, those identities no longer have any social currency. But if you are 'non-binary'? Girl you're dismantling the heteropatriarchy like nobody's business.

 

[ZiprHead]

I'm not talking about transgender. That's easy to understand. The brain matter doesn't always match up with the body parts. Those folks should be given the option to transition and be accepted for who they are. It's just a little harder to understand the concept of being gender fluid. Actually, it's becoming difficult to understand what the term gender even means.

Narcissism. It’s all narcissism. It’s the current way to be unique and important. Everyone must bow. But in reality it’s completely meaningless. The only categories that matter are male / female and gay / straight / bi.

Anti-science BS.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So what is an XXY person? What's an XYY person? What's a female-appearing XY person? What's an approximately-female XY person that develops a penis at puberty?

re "babies don't have boobs" True, but i take it you never changed a baby's diaper.
To complicate Metaphor's point about he and she being traditionally "sex" pronouns, in those olden times that are of no interest to Tom, babies and toddlers were often called "it" in English. See for instance the dialogue that Shakespeare, a famous bisexual adult male and father of 3, writes for the Nurse when she is reminiscing about weaning Juliet, about Juliet's reaction when the Nurse and her husband talking about how Juliet will grow up to be a heterosexual women in act 1, scene 3. In the same scene, when referring to the presently almost- 14-yr. old Juliet whom the Nurse and Juliet's mother are priming for marriage, the Nurse uses "she". And of course to complicate things further, all three actors in the scene in the original 1590s production were cross-dressing biological males.

You are right that I've never changed a baby (we took the childfree path) but you're missing my 4th case. Guevedoces can be distinguished from females by careful examination but you could change one and not realize what they are.

And my point was that while babies don't have boobs it has already been determined whether they will develop them or not. Compare that to sexuality--we don't know when it's laid down but it's quite possible it's programmed before birth even though there's no appearance of it early on.

 

[Oleg]

I'm not talking about transgender. That's easy to understand. The brain matter doesn't always match up with the body parts. Those folks should be given the option to transition and be accepted for who they are. It's just a little harder to understand the concept of being gender fluid. Actually, it's becoming difficult to understand what the term gender even means.

Narcissism. It’s all narcissism. It’s the current way to be unique and important. Everyone must bow. But in reality it’s completely meaningless. The only categories that matter are male / female and gay / straight / bi.

Anti-science BS.

LOL. You really think objective replicable science supports the gender cult? Is that the same “science” that backs astrology? Muh feels?

And, yes, it’s insufferable narcissism.

 

[Bomb#20]

I'm not talking about transgender. That's easy to understand. The brain matter doesn't always match up with the body parts. Those folks should be given the option to transition and be accepted for who they are. It's just a little harder to understand the concept of being gender fluid. Actually, it's becoming difficult to understand what the term gender even means.

Narcissism. It’s all narcissism. It’s the current way to be unique and important. Everyone must bow. But in reality it’s completely meaningless. The only categories that matter are male / female and gay / straight / bi.

Anti-science BS.

Are you proposing that sociology qualifies as a science? Or are you claiming chemistry or neurobiology or some other actual science has discovered empirical evidence that objectively distinguishes "categories that matter" from "categories that don't matter"? If you meant the latter, share.

 

[Jarhyn]

So what is an XXY person? What's an XYY person? What's a female-appearing XY person? What's an approximately-female XY person that develops a penis at puberty?

re "babies don't have boobs" True, but i take it you never changed a baby's diaper.
To complicate Metaphor's point about he and she being traditionally "sex" pronouns, in those olden times that are of no interest to Tom, babies and toddlers were often called "it" in English. See for instance the dialogue that Shakespeare, a famous bisexual adult male and father of 3, writes for the Nurse when she is reminiscing about weaning Juliet, about Juliet's reaction when the Nurse and her husband talking about how Juliet will grow up to be a heterosexual women in act 1, scene 3. In the same scene, when referring to the presently almost- 14-yr. old Juliet whom the Nurse and Juliet's mother are priming for marriage, the Nurse uses "she". And of course to complicate things further, all three actors in the scene in the original 1590s production were cross-dressing biological males.

You are right that I've never changed a baby (we took the childfree path) but you're missing my 4th case. Guevedoces can be distinguished from females by careful examination but you could change one and not realize what they are.

And my point was that while babies don't have boobs it has already been determined whether they will develop them or not. Compare that to sexuality--we don't know when it's laid down but it's quite possible it's programmed before birth even though there's no appearance of it early on.

Well, it's only been partially determined. We have ways these days to put a finger on that scale, assuming tyrants don't get their way.

Some things though, like how the brain is going to develop, happen pretty early.

Really the question is where various points of no return are reached.

 

[Oleg]

Really the question is where various points of no return are reached.

Conception.

 

[Bomb#20]

To complicate Metaphor's point about he and she being traditionally "sex" pronouns, in those olden times that are of no interest to Tom, babies and toddlers were often called "it" in English.

I'm curious.
Am I the Tom you are referring to in this sentence?
Tom

Yes. jab appears to be referring to post #46.

So then you admit your characterisation of the history of pronoun usage for humans is false.

Nope. You're managing to misunderstand.
I'm saying I don't care about it enough to learn about ancient language usage.

 

[Bomb#20]

...

proof? cite your sources please.
or is this mainly an ideological position?

You've answered your own question.

 

[Politesse]

It really pisses me off that you're vaguely claiming that "science" or "linguistics" or "history" justify your bigoted opinions about gender, while displaying zero familiarity with any of those subjects. Even English, the language we're all typing in, did not consistently link grammatical to social gender until relatively recently in its history, let alone "sex", a concept whose modern connotations of strict biological determinism existed no more or less in the imagination of the Medieval Englishman than gender did. Perspectives on masculinity and femininity were wildly different even just a few centuries back let alone for "all time". The variability of gender perspectives over time is part of the reason scientists started to distinguish between sex and gender in the first place.

The first distinctions between sex and gender that I heard of were being made by feminists in the 1970s. It is an importnt and liberating conceptual distinction, one which Conservatives and gender essentialists haven't liked at all.

It really wasn't until the 1980s that "sex"/"gender" came to be used in the current fashion; before that time, "sex" was used in essentially all academic contexts for which we would now use the term "gender". But, it had been recognized that "sex" was at least partially socially constructed from the 1920s onward. Mead's famous work "Sex and Temperament..." [1935] would have to be titled "Gender and Personality..." if it were written today. But her observations about the context of gender identity formation remain relatively sound.

 

[Bomb#20]

People get to decide on their own name. Why do you think that doesn't include the appropriate pronouns?

"If the Army wanted you to have an opinion it would issue you one." Why would it be "appropriate" for people to recite the opinions somebody issued them, instead of expressing their own opinions? What do you even mean by "appropriate"?

... yes, for many decades we've allowed people to legally change their names, by marriage or by deed poll. But in all those decades, nobody changed their pronouns, and nobody asked, because you don't get to choose your pronouns. In fact, I can think of no language where the target of the pronouns gets to 'choose' their pronouns.

There aren't any such languages, and there can't be -- that's not how the language centers of brains are wired. Pronouns in natural languages are an evolutionary hack that makes it less of a burden on memory to compute what a sentence means. If we come out on the other side of this kulturkampf with a self-appointed Academie Anglaise empowered to coerce the rest of the language's speakers to use whatever word a referenced person wants us to use the second time we refer to him or her, then we will all have to store a bunch of extra bits in our mental data structures for people, and we will no longer be relieving the burden on our memories. Construction and interpretation of sentences will in effect have to bypass the hardware coprocessor that handles pronouns and be computed in software. If the gender ideologues get their way they won't have changed our pronouns; they'll have abolished them -- the things they'll be making us use will be nicknames, not pronouns.