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

[Metaphor]

. I think most of us learned this in 7th grade science

Unless you took 7th grade science in 1904, what you were taught was an inaccurate presentation of what was by then known to the scientific community. There is no scientific rationale for defining only two chromosomal patterns, when variations have been empirically observed, essentially for as long as scientists learned how to look for them. Our knowledge of sex chromosome "abnormalities", in fact, well predates the discovery of DNA; the convenience of sex differences occupying the 23rd chromosome meant that they could identify the sex chromosomes by length. And it became immediately clear that apparent sex and chromosomal sex weren't synonyms for all individuals, let alone socially ascribed gender attributes. Neither that all humans have an XX or XY pattern resulting in an analogous apparent sex - these two patterns describes only about 98% of live births. The rest of us exhibit some degree of intersex characteristics, often unbeknownst to those who exhibit them until they try for a pregnancy or take a 23 and Me. And intersexual characteristics are only one of many reasons why a person might identify as transgender or nonbinary.

There are only two sexes, Politesse, because there are only two gamete types in humans. There is no third gamete type.

 

[Metaphor]

Even such a statement only makes since if one is either deliberately excluding gender trinary and quadrenary cultures from "human history", or is simply unaware that they are, and have for a very long time been, as much a part of human history as gender binary cultures.

Must be nice up there in your ivory tower, protected from the reality we 99%ers live in.

I'm trying to explain why proper pronoun usage is gendered, not sexed. Also that public restrooms are sexed, not gendered.

From you and Jarhyn to Oleg and Metaphor, the number of people who seem more attached to their own opinions and views than functional civility are legion.
Tom

You are simply incorrect about pronouns, TomC. Pronoun usage wasn't secretly 'gendered' in the past for humans in English. It was based on sex.

 

[Metaphor]

I think the shooter is probably lying about being non-binary.

That is an unacceptable expression of transphobia, thebeave.

 

[Metaphor]

We're taking this on the word of a defendant's lawyer???

Did the lawyer say it in court or just to the press?

Ahead of the hearing, attorneys for Aldrich submitted a court filing stating the suspect identifies as nonbinary. “They use they-them pronouns, and for the purposes of all formal filings, will be addressed as Mx. Aldrich,” the court document noted.

 

[Bomb#20]

Saying like in the title.. "
"Colorado club shooter is non-binary, CNN repeatedly misgenders them...."
or
"At that point, try them as a person who walked into a club and murdered folks."

Would mean that CNN has "misgendered" more than one person?

Nope, it means CNN and the previous posters misnumbered the above person. Number and gender are two different things.

 

[Bomb#20]

Until we have a better picture of the situation I don't see how we can properly assign pronouns in this case.

What pronouns are proper to assign depends on the purpose for which you're speaking. Some people use language for communication; if that's your purpose then one set of pronouns is proper. On the other hand, if your purpose for using language is Robin Williams's, then which pronouns are proper depends on which woman you are aiming to woo.

But for the context of this thread, the main purpose of language appears to be tribal identification.

And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

- Judges 12:5–6​

 

[laughing dog]

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.

 

[TomC]

You are simply incorrect about pronouns, TomC. Pronoun usage wasn't secretly 'gendered' in the past for humans in English. It was based on sex.

No, pronoun usage norms were developed before the distinction between sex and gender was generally made.

For the overwhelming majority today, sex and gender are still linked. But not necessarily, so to being basically social means taking cues, rather than deciding for yourself what you prefer to use in the way of pronouns.

This is not rocket science.
Tom

 

[Bomb#20]

Sorry if you find the modern world complex in ways that make you uncomfortable.

But words have meaning. If the meaning of words can so easily be charged to fit a political ideology, then language becomes incoherent. Maybe that’s the point.

The old meanings were doubleplusungood. Sorry, I mean Emmanuel Goldstein's meanings are doubleplusungood. Gender has always meant gender identity. Doubleplusgood people have always been at war with sex-based pronouns.

That's easy. Progressives are masters; unbelievers are dhimmis.

 

[Metaphor]

You are simply incorrect about pronouns, TomC. Pronoun usage wasn't secretly 'gendered' in the past for humans in English. It was based on sex.

No, pronoun usage norms were developed before the distinction between sex and gender was generally made.

That is exactly the point. It was based on sex, TomC, precisely because the concept of 'gender identity' did not exist. This did not present a problem, because everybody knew what sex was.

For the overwhelming majority today, sex and gender are still linked. But not necessarily, so to being basically social means taking cues, rather than deciding for yourself what you prefer to use in the way of pronouns.

This is not rocket science.

You are quite correct it isn't rocket science, which is why your insistence on a falsehood seems so odd.

 

[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.

 

[laughing dog]

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.

Not in the rational sense of the term. But I was thanking you for bringing this vital story to everyone's attention.

 

[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.

Not in the rational sense of the term. But I was thanking you for bringing this vital story to everyone's attention.

You're welcome, laughing dog.

 

[TomC]

That is exactly the point. It was based on sex, TomC, precisely because the concept of 'gender identity' did not exist.

That's just not accurate. Pronoun usage wasn't based specifically on either one because the distinction wasn't made by the primitive people who shaped the language.
Now decent folk do make the distinction, at least for the purposes of conversation.

This did not present a problem, because everybody knew what sex was.

"Everybody knew" is a ridiculous standard. Everybody knew that the earth was flat and the sun scooted along beneath a blue dome. Everybody knew that God created everything about 6000 years ago. "Nobody realized" is very different from "everybody knew".
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

It appears straight, LGBQ and whatever acronyms there are, anybody can go crazy and shoot people.

 

[Bomb#20]

You are simply incorrect about pronouns, TomC. Pronoun usage wasn't secretly 'gendered' in the past for humans in English. It was based on sex.

No, pronoun usage norms were developed before the distinction between sex and gender was generally made.

Actually it's the other way around. A thousand years ago the concepts were quite distinct, and English pronoun usage followed gender, with only an erratic link between gender and sex, just as in related languages like German, where the word for "girl" is neuter. Pronoun usage gradually changed to consistently match sex in the 12th and 13th centuries. The use of "gender" to mean "sex" began later, around six hundred years ago, and that only happened at all as a reaction to the shift in pronoun usage -- when "sex" and "gender" stopped referring to distinguishable categories, English speakers gradually forgot they'd ever meant different things. (Of course, the backdrop to all of this is that "gender" was a technical term borrowed from French, of interest mostly to grammarians. An English speaker who wasn't a monk was about as likely to say "gender" as "azimuth".)

 

[Metaphor]

That is exactly the point. It was based on sex, TomC, precisely because the concept of 'gender identity' did not exist.

That's just not accurate. Pronoun usage wasn't based specifically on either one

It was based specifically and only on sex, for humans, in English.

It cannot have been based on a concept that did not yet exist. It is literally impossible for that to have been the case.

because the distinction wasn't made by the primitive people who shaped the language.

You are correct. There was no concept of gender identity. That is why pronoun usage in English was based solely on sex.

Now decent folk do make the distinction, at least for the purposes of conversation.

What 'decent' folk decide to do now is a matter of debate, but I am correcting your misunderstanding of historical pronoun usage in English, for humans.

This did not present a problem, because everybody knew what sex was.

"Everybody knew" is a ridiculous standard.

Whether you think it is ridiculous or not, pronouns for humans were based on sex.

Everybody knew that the earth was flat and the sun scooted along beneath a blue dome. Everybody knew that God created everything about 6000 years ago. "Nobody realized" is very different from "everybody knew".
Tom

Humans made language. Humans decided that those that society agreed were males get 'he', and females get 'she'. There is literally no way for humans to have "got it wrong" because they got to decide the relationship between the signifier and the signified.

Your phantasia that 'he' and 'she' did refer to gender identity all along is in conflict with the facts, and your moral sensibility that it should have referred to gender identity all along is an expression of your moral opinion, not a fact about historical usage.

 

[TomC]

That is why pronoun usage in English was based solely on sex.

Key word here is "was".

pronouns for humans were based on sex.

Key word here is "we're".

Humans decided that those that society agreed were males get 'he', and females get 'she'.

Key word here is "decided".

your moral sensibility that it should have referred to gender identity all along is an expression of your moral opinion, not a fact about historical usage.

Key word here is "should have".
My "moral sensibility" here is based on people in the here and now getting along with each other. Historical usage doesn't matter to my moral sensibility any more than historical science concerning race or geography.
It just doesn't.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

I have no idea what “whinging” is.

Whining is USAian.

 

[Jarhyn]

I have no idea what “whinging” is

LMGTFY

Biology isn’t “messy” at all

Keep in mind I work in a bioassay company and read up regularly on advances in endocrinology and differentiations in human development. I'm also not the only one here that reads up on it... I'm probably not even the one on the forums with the best knowledge.

chromosomes still determine the person’s biological sex. I think most of us learned this in 7th grade science.

And something that you learn in... Well, usually college, is that what you learned in 7th grade is a gross oversimplification, unto the point where almost all of it is laughably wrong.

In some ways the chromosomes advise the function of other systems. I say "advise" because it really is just that, a recommendation.

Methylation of genetic regions, autoimmune responses by the gestational parent, genetic predisposition for or against hormonal reception, chimeric cells, even expression frequencies of specific codes in the DNA can all impact what precipitates from those chromosomes.

As a result you can end up with XY folks with functional uteruses and a majority of testicular tissue, who produce both sperms and who carry eggs, but that's not all... Whose children do not appear as theirs even though they clearly gave birth to and produced the eggs of those children.

The tissue of the gonads itself is separate from the formation of brain tissues which define the subtle differences of the brain which primes the organism for growing up with various behaviors and which inform self-image, and this also reflects differentiated function. There are multiple parts of the brain which can form slightly differently, and this is where I expect gender comes from.

I think it is rather cavalier to proclaim a binary when there are such messy shades of grey. People said the same bullshit you did, but about homosexuals, claiming that it was not possible for someone to be born gay, too, that it was a choice rather than an intrinsic quality of the mind.

Finally, this is again separate from any structures in the brain and body which differentiate from adolescent hormone exposure.

I nor the reader or listener of the news should be confused over “they/them” as in “They shot up the gay club.

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.

If you are confused by this, I recommend doing your very best to surpass a 5th grade reading level.