Gender Roles

[TomC]

Then quit making claims about what I said.

Did you say it?
Or, like so many other ideologues, you just prefer not to discuss it.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

Then quit making claims about what I said.

Did you say it?
Or, like so many other ideologues, you just prefer not to discuss it.
Tom

No, what I did say, you seem unable and disinterested in producing
We are discussing what you said, and your attempt to DARVO is just sad.

Now are you going to address the subject or keep trying to change it?

 

[TomC]

Then quit making claims about what I said.

Did you say it?
Or, like so many other ideologues, you just prefer not to discuss it.
Tom

No, what I did say, you seem unable and disinterested in producing
We are discussing what you said, and your attempt to DARVO is just sad.

Now are you going to address the subject or keep trying to change it?

The subject I posted about is that children don't get to choose the way adults do.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

Then quit making claims about what I said.

Did you say it?
Or, like so many other ideologues, you just prefer not to discuss it.
Tom

No, what I did say, you seem unable and disinterested in producing
We are discussing what you said, and your attempt to DARVO is just sad.

Now are you going to address the subject or keep trying to change it?

The subject I posted about is that children don't get to choose the way adults do.
Tom

You posted an
 Argument from analogy

An argument from analogy is built on the foundation of the similarities between the analogues and the item in the conclusion—the analogy. Anything that weakens that foundation weakens the argument

You made a claim based on a specific, well known logical form. That logical form is invalidated by particular dissimilarities.

Here, in your claim made in this thread, the actual tie from the example to "evil" is "nobody does anything like this; zero experiences of it are acceptable". For child rape, that's true. It's absolutely unacceptable.

For the thing you are trying to draw analogy to, the experience of puberty A vs puberty B, you do expect people of that age to accept those experiences. It is thus broken from this "absolutely unacceptable" form that you wish to paint.

From this your attempted "appeal to analogy" becomes unmasked as a "broad brush"

Your position is to deny that choice because you decided to deny them that choice. That's not a reason, that's a religion.

 

[Jarhyn]

Then quit making claims about what I said.

Did you say it?
Or, like so many other ideologues, you just prefer not to discuss it.
Tom

No, what I did say, you seem unable and disinterested in producing
We are discussing what you said, and your attempt to DARVO is just sad.

Now are you going to address the subject or keep trying to change it?

The subject I posted about is that children don't get to choose the way adults do.
Tom

You posted an
 Argument from analogy

An argument from analogy is built on the foundation of the similarities between the analogues and the item in the conclusion—the analogy. Anything that weakens that foundation weakens the argument

You made a claim based on a specific, well known logical form. That logical form is invalidated by particular dissimilarities.

Here, in your claim made in this thread, the actual tie from the example to "evil" is "nobody does anything like this; zero experiences of it are acceptable". For child rape, that's true. It's absolutely unacceptable.

For the thing you are trying to draw analogy to, the experience of puberty A vs puberty B, you do expect people of that age to accept those experiences. It is thus broken from this "absolutely unacceptable" form that you wish to paint.

From this your attempted "appeal to analogy" becomes unmasked as a "broad brush"

Your position is to deny that choice because you decided to deny them that choice. That's not a reason, that's a religion.

See also "the elsewhere thread".

Consider a cisgender girl who has always been happy with her assigned gender. Then suddenly, at the age of nine or ten (as she is entering puberty), her body shows signs of masculinization, and doctors confirm that this is due to her body producing testosterone (for the record, this is not a hypothetical situation for some intersex children). If this child was horrified about these potential unwanted changes, and asked for hormonal intervention (which the doctor confirmed would be safe and effective), would you respect her decision and allow her to proceed with it? Or would you dismiss her wishes on account of her lack of maturity, and insist that she just deal with the testosterone until she is eighteen and capable of making an adult decision? As with the last example, if this scenario concerns you, but the idea of transgender children being forced to experience unwanted puberties does not, then you clearly value cis bodies and lives over trans ones.

 

[Jokodo]

I for one don't believe she did. From what I gather, she claims that they qualify as disorders because they are not what we evolved "for"

No. They are disorders because they cause deleterious outcomes for those who have those conditions. They present with actual fucking harm experienced by the people who have them. In some cases the negative health issues are fairly obvious (such as with Kallman Syndrome, where there's a significant risk of osteoporosis and a host of other conditions), some are less obvious and largely present as sterility.

You're mixing two topics here. Disorders appear in any number of species, in any number of situations, and are generally based on the deleterious nature of the conditions on the individual with that condition. This is a separate issue from my discussion of the nature of sex.

Sex is an evolved mechanism present in most reproductive species. Some few species do not reproduce sexually, they reproduce via division (bacteria, for example) or via more complex "mating sets" like many algaes. But a huge number of species - especially vertebrates - reproduce sexually. That method of reproduction is the product of evolution. Way, way, wayyyyyyy back hundreds of millions of years ago, our ancestral species evolved so that reproduction occurred as a result of the merging of two different sized gametes. The two gametes have different roles in the creation of offspring, and those gametes place different demands on the bodies that produce them. As a result of those different demands, these species that reproduce via two different sized gametes (called anisogamous species) evolved different anatomical structures and processes. While the anatomies themselves differ from species to species, what is universal is that within any anisogamous species, we can observe that one body type has evolved to support the production of small motile gametes (sperm), and a different body type has evolved to support the production of large sessile gametes (ova).

We have observed that even when the individual does not actually produce gametes, they still conform to one of those two basic anatomical structures. We can also note that no other body type has evolved - there is no other distinct phenotype that has ever been observed within anisogamous species.

We have definitely observed that the growth of those phenotypes can be derailed, can display incomplete or ambiguous development, can even in some very rare cases display a mixture of typically male and typically female elements. But it is also clear in those cases that there are deleterious effects from those developments, often including the inability to reproduce. It's also clear that such conditions aren't within the range of normal range of human development. And it's abundantly clear to anyone without an ideological axe to grind that these are not evolved phenotypes in and of themselves.

Some people wish to argue that these conditions are either unique sexes of their own, or that they indicate that sex is "bimodal" or "a spectrum". Those arguments are flawed, and demonstrate a considerable lack of understanding of the process of evolution as well as the nature of sexual reproduction across all mammals, all birds, nearly all vertebrates, a huge portion of arthropods, and a whole lot of plants.

Regarding the remainder of your post, I will once again reiterate that evolution has no intent, no objective, it does not select. Evolution is a process, a mechanism. It's a gigantic pachinko machine played out over millions of years.

Shorter executive summary of my other reply: A phenotype that was at no point in the species' evolutionary history subject to positive selection, or indeed is under strong negative selection, doesn't thereby automatically fall outside the range of the species' variation. Whether something falls within the range of variation within the species is determined solely, exclusively, by whether it exists among members of the species. Adding a qualifier like "normal" doesn't help either, it just introduces a backdoor for subjective judgement.

You can call them "disorders" if you like, but that doesn't make them not part of the reality of sex in humans. You don't get to declare that "normal" adult human body size ranges strictly between 125 (4'1'' for the metrically impaired) and 210 (6'11') and pretend people outside that range don't exist, or should receive zero consideration in how we structure our public infrastructure and interactions.

 

[Emily Lake]

There are genes that contribute to the expression of the phenotype. As discussed in other posts in this same thread even, those genes are often related to maternal processes, creating an epigenetic effect.

Homosexuality isn't a phenotype.

What do you think that a phenotype is?

phenotype / phenotypes | Learn Science at Scitable

The term "phenotype" refers to the observable physical properties of an organism; these include the organism's appearance, development, and behavior. An organism's phenotype is determined by its genotype, which is the set of genes the organism carries, as well as by environmental influences upon these genes. Due to the influence of environmental factors, organisms with identical genotypes, such as identical twins, ultimately express nonidentical phenotypes because each organism encounters unique environmental influences as it develops. Examples of phenotypes include height, wing length, and hair color. Phenotypes also include observable characteristics that can be measured in the laboratory, such as levels of hormones or blood cells.

Homosexuality is rather obviously a phenotype, as is sex/gender differentiation more generally.

What are the physical properties of homosexuality?

 

[Jarhyn]

There are genes that contribute to the expression of the phenotype. As discussed in other posts in this same thread even, those genes are often related to maternal processes, creating an epigenetic effect.

Homosexuality isn't a phenotype.

What do you think that a phenotype is?

phenotype / phenotypes | Learn Science at Scitable

The term "phenotype" refers to the observable physical properties of an organism; these include the organism's appearance, development, and behavior. An organism's phenotype is determined by its genotype, which is the set of genes the organism carries, as well as by environmental influences upon these genes. Due to the influence of environmental factors, organisms with identical genotypes, such as identical twins, ultimately express nonidentical phenotypes because each organism encounters unique environmental influences as it develops. Examples of phenotypes include height, wing length, and hair color. Phenotypes also include observable characteristics that can be measured in the laboratory, such as levels of hormones or blood cells.

Homosexuality is rather obviously a phenotype, as is sex/gender differentiation more generally.

What are the physical properties of homosexuality?

Are you seriously going to try claiming that homosexuality in humans has nothing to do with the physical configuration of said humans?

 

[Emily Lake]

Within the general population, it is well established that not all individuals conform to XY or XX. There are a number of variations, the true proportion of those variations is unknown because very few of us have our DNA analyzed.

Karyotype does not define sex.

I do think that as far as functioning in society, it is more important whether one feels themselves to be male, female, neither male or female or both male or female than what external or internal sex organs are present. Medically, there are different implications depending on what sex organs are present, both externally and internally.

Whether a person "feels themselves to be" male or female shouldn't have any bearing on whether or not they get to strip down in front of the opposite sex. Medically, yes, the presence of certain organs drives a lot of treatment. But as for society at large, I do NOT think that a person's subjective feelings is more important than their objective reality.

If we were to take your statement as fact, then the result is that if a male person with an entirely male body thinks of themselves as a woman... then because of what they claim to feel, they get placed into female prisons with female inmates. They get to strip down and use the female side of the Korean Spa, because their internal feelings are more important than the objective fact that they're a male who is showing off their male genitals to a bunch of women without their consent. Your position argues that if a person merely says that they feel like a women, then they can demand to be housed in a female-only rape shelter, play in female athletic sports, and provide intimate care to female patients who have requested a female carer.

I personally believe that rigid norms as to what is considered male and what is considered female behavior or what are considered male or female attributes is artificially constructed and is damaging.

I agree that rigid norms regarding behavior are damaging.

On the other hand, our bodies aren't artificial constructs, nor is the abuse and discrimination that women have faced throughout the millennia as a result of our sexed bodies. Young women aren't having their clitorises removed and their vaginas sewn shut because their sex is an artificial construct, nor is it because they "feel like a girl" inside their brains. Infants aren't having their foreskin cut off because of an artificial construct, nor because of how they view their personalities with respect to gendered stereotypes. 98% of rape victims aren't being raped because of an artificial construct, nor are they raped because of how they feel on the inside.

 

[Emily Lake]

Generally evolution is what happens when some mutation fails to actually be lethal like normal.

There's a lot in your post that is errant, but let's just stick with this one thing, since it's fundamental.

Most of our genes are genes that aren't actively being used, don't code for anything, or are repetitious sets of genes with no effect. Something around 90% ish, though the actual value varies by source. If mutations occurred uniformly, then we'd have to conclude that the vast majority of mutations aren't lethal since they have no effect at all. For the remaining 10%-ish, mutations aren't particularly rare, but most are benign or immaterial and are definitely not lethal. In reality, very few mutations are lethal.

Furthermore, lethality isn't a requirement for a mutation to impact evolution. The only thing that matters is whether or not the trait (including mutations) affects the individual's ability to produce offspring. Nothing else matters from an evolutionary perspective. Obviously, a trait that results in the death of the individual prior to reaching reproductive maturity, would not be passed on. On the other hand, we already carry a ton of heritable traits that increase the likelihood of death, but which don't express until after most people with that trait have reproduced.

 

[Emily Lake]

That right there in the last paragraph is why breaking down the range of variation of a species into "normal" and "abnormal", and categorising it into "evolved phenotypes" and "disorders" is nonsensical. Evolution has given us largely shared developmental trajectories for male and female gonads and genitals that usually produces either one or the other but is prone to produce intermediate forms at a low but non-zero rate when a part of it is disturbed by environmental factors or when an assortment of usually benign variants of seemingly unrelated genes conspire to shift the trajectory. Everything about those less frequent outcomes is the product of evolution.

It's nice to know that you believe my epilepsy is just a normal variation, and should totally just be accepted as it is and celebrated as a source of diversity.

On the other hand, I'm inclined to accept my doctor's view of it being a disorder, and thus to seek treatment for it so I don't fucking die of a prolonged seizure.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Within the general population, it is well established that not all individuals conform to XY or XX. There are a number of variations, the true proportion of those variations is unknown because very few of us have our DNA analyzed.

Karyotype does not define sex.

I do think that as far as functioning in society, it is more important whether one feels themselves to be male, female, neither male or female or both male or female than what external or internal sex organs are present. Medically, there are different implications depending on what sex organs are present, both externally and internally.

Whether a person "feels themselves to be" male or female shouldn't have any bearing on whether or not they get to strip down in front of the opposite sex. Medically, yes, the presence of certain organs drives a lot of treatment. But as for society at large, I do NOT think that a person's subjective feelings is more important than their objective reality.

And indeed, we reach the crux of your failing in this subject. You are insistent that your idea of their biological set up is the "objective reality". But in truth, it is just your unqualified opinion.

 

[Emily Lake]

It is not "protecting kids from themselves" nor "protecting them from predatory adults", or else protecting one child from testosterone-based puberty would mean an obligation to protect all children from testosterone-based -puberty.

If you give a female juvenile testosterone during adolescence, she's not going to have a male puberty. She isn't male, and she isn't going to experience the physical maturation that testosterone prompts in MALES.

We aren't Mx. Potato Head, with plug and play parts to be chosen at will.

 

[TomC]

Are you seriously going to try claiming that homosexuality in humans has nothing to do with the physical configuration of said humans?

I don't understand @Emily Lake subsequent post,
But I'll tell you flat out.
My "physical configuration" is male. There is nothing important about me that is not male.

That might inconvenience your gender ideological purity, but it's the reality.

If anything, I'm kinda at the macho-shithead end of the spectrum. So is my partner.
It can be a problem.
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

And yet again you drag analogically dissimilar things in from the thing we are discussing, invalidating your opinions through the invalidity of the metaphor.

Oh please.
I remember you comparing sex segregated public restrooms to race segregated bank machines.
Tom

Jarhyn is also the one who insisted that sexual orientation was a "genital fetish" and implied that everyone should try to unlearn their sexual bigotry if they aren't interested in having a roll in the hay with someone of the sex they aren't attracted to.

 

[Emily Lake]

Now do you have some answers as to my point about why these that you bring are invalid, or are you going to just keep prevaricating?

They aren't invalid. Your faith insists that they're invalid, but nobody else is required to convert to your religious views.

 

[Jarhyn]

Are you seriously going to try claiming that homosexuality in humans has nothing to do with the physical configuration of said humans?

I don't understand @Emily Lake subsequent post,
But I'll tell you flat out.
My "physical configuration" is male. There is nothing important about me that is not male.

That might inconvenience your gender ideological purity, but it's the reality.

If anything, I'm kinda at the macho-shithead end of the spectrum. So is my partner.
It can be a problem.
Tom

First off, no, there is something different between you and "the statistical normal male", and that something drives you to get boners for men. That is physical. That is a difference. It is part of your phenotype.

Second, what you are or aren't says nothing about what someone else is or isn't.

 

[Jarhyn]

Then quit making claims about what I said.

Did you say it?
Or, like so many other ideologues, you just prefer not to discuss it.
Tom

No, what I did say, you seem unable and disinterested in producing
We are discussing what you said, and your attempt to DARVO is just sad.

Now are you going to address the subject or keep trying to change it?

The subject I posted about is that children don't get to choose the way adults do.
Tom

You posted an
 Argument from analogy

An argument from analogy is built on the foundation of the similarities between the analogues and the item in the conclusion—the analogy. Anything that weakens that foundation weakens the argument

You made a claim based on a specific, well known logical form. That logical form is invalidated by particular dissimilarities.

Here, in your claim made in this thread, the actual tie from the example to "evil" is "nobody does anything like this; zero experiences of it are acceptable". For child rape, that's true. It's absolutely unacceptable.

For the thing you are trying to draw analogy to, the experience of puberty A vs puberty B, you do expect people of that age to accept those experiences. It is thus broken from this "absolutely unacceptable" form that you wish to paint.

From this your attempted "appeal to analogy" becomes unmasked as a "broad brush"

Your position is to deny that choice because you decided to deny them that choice. That's not a reason, that's a religion.

See also "the elsewhere thread".

Consider a cisgender girl who has always been happy with her assigned gender. Then suddenly, at the age of nine or ten (as she is entering puberty), her body shows signs of masculinization, and doctors confirm that this is due to her body producing testosterone (for the record, this is not a hypothetical situation for some intersex children). If this child was horrified about these potential unwanted changes, and asked for hormonal intervention (which the doctor confirmed would be safe and effective), would you respect her decision and allow her to proceed with it? Or would you dismiss her wishes on account of her lack of maturity, and insist that she just deal with the testosterone until she is eighteen and capable of making an adult decision? As with the last example, if this scenario concerns you, but the idea of transgender children being forced to experience unwanted puberties does not, then you clearly value cis bodies and lives over trans ones.

Also, still waiting on that answer, Tom...

 

[TomC]

Also, still waiting on that answer, Tom...

Ok
I pointed out the facts.
Children are not expected or legally able to make all of the choices adults are able to choose.
That is a fact.
I explained why, at length. I provided examples of similar situations.
I made a fact based assertion. Backed it up with reasoning. And some examples.

You don't understand that sort of argument if it doesn't work for your gender ideology so you just don't see it.
You may as well be a creotard explaining why you know that Jesus was riding dinosaurs 5,000 years ago.
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

Shorter executive summary of my other reply: A phenotype that was at no point in the species' evolutionary history subject to positive selection, or indeed is under strong negative selection, doesn't thereby automatically fall outside the range of the species' variation.

Why are you assuming without evidence or support that the female and male reproductive systems in anisogamous species have NOT been subject to either positive or negative selection?

Whether something falls within the range of variation within the species is determined solely, exclusively, by whether it exists among members of the species. Adding a qualifier like "normal" doesn't help either, it just introduces a backdoor for subjective judgement.

Tell that to statistics. Your insistence on viewing the term "normal" through the lense of morality is your own problem, and it colors your ability to interact.

You can call them "disorders" if you like, but that doesn't make them not part of the reality of sex in humans.

Medical doctors who treat the deleterious effects of them call them disorders. They also call my epilepsy a disorder. I'm inclined to believe their views on this rather than the ideologically-driven dogma of a random person in the internet.

I'm especially disinclined to accept these conditions being rhetorically hijacked by activists who don't actually give a fuck about the people whose medical conditions they're appropriating for use in a topic that has nothing at all to do with them.

You don't get to declare that "normal" adult human body size ranges strictly between 125 (4'1'' for the metrically impaired) and 210 (6'11') and pretend people outside that range don't exist, or should receive zero consideration in how we structure our public infrastructure and interactions.

This is something you've invented all by yourself, and I'm not obliged to conform to your mischaracterization.

The normal distribution of height among humans has standard deviations that place the vast majority between 4'1" and 6'11" as adults. The overwhelming majority of people who fall outside that range as adults have medical conditions that present with deleterious effects. Acknowledging that does not in any fashion whatsoever imply that they don't exist, nor does it in any way imply that we shouldn't consider those outliers in our infrastructure and interactions. In reality, however, we *do* ignore the 7'3" tall people in our infrastructure and interactions. Standard doors are only 6'7" in height, cars aren't built to accommodate the very tall or very short.

Hell, a lot of our infrastructure doesn't even accommodate common female heights! Seatbelts in cars are sized to an average male frame, and they don't cross females in the appropriate location. Seatbelts are responsible for neck and collarbone injuries in women who are in crashes, specifically because they don't cross our bodies low enough. Across the board, chairs are sized for a male frame, and a large number of women are too short to sit in them comfortably. I'm short, but well within the range of common female heights - my heels don't touch the ground in most restaurant or work chairs. Over half of women can't reach the top shelf at grocery stores, even though women do the majority of the grocery shopping.

Your entire approach is off kilter. For all intents, you're arguing that we should make policies to allow people with completely unambiguous and typical phenotypes for their sex to use services and spaces intended for the opposite sex... because some other people somewhere else have medical conditions that sometimes result in ambiguous genitals. To bring that back around to your height analogy... you're arguing that people who are measurably 6'2" tall, but who identify as 3' tall children should be allowed to ride the kiddie rides because someone else has skeletal dysplasia.