Gender Roles

[Emily Lake]

sorry to disappoint you, but your outgroup have free speech rights too. As painful as it must be for you, everyone has a right to tell someone else what they are -- that goes with the whole First Amendment thing too.

I've not said otherwise. Emily has a right to be a bigot and even talk like one, but she does not have a "right" to have her opinions coddled to by others. If she thinks her regressive views have a place in public fora, she is free to pursue that prerogative exactly as far aa that can get her, and she should be ready to face backlash. Which, I'm pretty she is. Honestly, I think she'd be disappointed if everyone just agreed with her.

"Insulting tone" FFS.

You frame my views as being hateful because of my "tone"... and in the very next post you characterize me as being a bigot, to wanting to be coddled to, and to having regressive views. And I'm sure you don't see your approach as being insulting at all. SMH.

 

[Politesse]

If a male feels like he has a gendery soul, I am quite happy for him to wear a dress and heels, and to change his name to Annabelle. I truly don't care at all.

Not ten posts ago you insisted that if a celebrity you apparently admire were to transition, you would blatantly insult them at every opportunity. That isn't "not minding". You are minding everyone's business but your own.

 

[Emily Lake]

I don't know. But there's very little in there to reply to without writing a seventy page book about it. There are several assumptions in there that are inapplicable (for example, the assumption that an infertile male isn't male) and a whole lot of erroneous "ifs" that go from there (for example that a male with a penis to big to fit a normal female vaginal canal isn't a male, and that when he finds a woman with a canyon, he is magically turned into a male).

I didn't say any such thing though. I said that he's *infertile* and becomes fertile, which according to your logic, according to the exact argument you have used to bat intersex conditions from the discussion, seems to imply he was suffering a congenital disorder until he wasn't, without undergoing any intrinsic change.

That's actually even worse, Jokodo. A male isn't infertile if he can't find someone to breed with. Fertility is based on whether or not a person's gonads produce viable gametes. And infertility by itself is not a disorder. Many people are infertile and do not have a disorder of sexual development at all. Many people have disorders of sexual development and are not infertile. The only place they overlap is that some disorders of sexual development present with infertility.

Fertility is not a basis of a person's sex. Sex is defined by the type of reproductive system that a person has - it need not be complete, it need not be functional. A person who has the system that has evolved to produce large gametes is female - even if part of that system is missing, or if their ovaries don't produce eggs at all. A male who has had an orchiectomy for testicular cancer is no less of a male than one who is intact.

This doesn't make him not male, or only makes your decision criteria for what defined a disorder and why should exclude them dem the discussion of sex not applicable.

That's problem for your analysis, not mine!

It's not - it's a problem with your mischaracterization or misunderstanding of my position.

 

[Emily Lake]

And, while it's apparently offensive to the mindset of progressives who want academia to be their wholly-owned church, your outgroup are even allowed to openly disagree with you in a public sociology class

To this, on the other hand: the public has every right to expect science, not religion, in a science class. That is also a clause of the first amendment. The government does not and cannot endorse a Biblical view of womanhood over that which scientific consensus defines. You can teach "people in x group believe y", because that is a fact. You cannot teach those beliefs as facts. That is indoctrination, and the government is not supposed to take sides on inter-religious disputes.

I completely agree with you on this.

 

[Politesse]

And, while it's apparently offensive to the mindset of progressives who want academia to be their wholly-owned church, your outgroup are even allowed to openly disagree with you in a public sociology class

To this, on the other hand: the public has every right to expect science, not religion, in a science class. That is also a clause of the first amendment. The government does not and cannot endorse a Biblical view of womanhood over that which scientific consensus defines. You can teach "people in x group believe y", because that is a fact. You cannot teach those beliefs as facts. That is indoctrination, and the government is not supposed to take sides on inter-religious disputes.

I completely agree with you on this.

Yet you think I should be selling a pack of pseudo-scientific lies about sex and gender in my classroom? Come off it.

 

[Emily Lake]

If a male feels like he has a gendery soul, I am quite happy for him to wear a dress and heels, and to change his name to Annabelle. I truly don't care at all.

That's a painfully obvious lie. Not ten posts ago you insisted that if a celebrity you apparently admire were to transition, you would blatantly insult them at every opportunity. That isn't "not minding". You are minding everyone's business but your own.

Lol, this is an absurd revision of my post. You can't possibly believe what you just wrote is a reasonable characterization of what I said.

I said "I don't give a crap what pronouns Momoa wants to use for himself. At the same time, however, when I'm talking to my friends about what a complete and utter hunk Momoa is, I'm going to refer to him as "he" even if he insists he's really a woman on the inside. Because every single bit of Momoa is male."

Are you somehow imagining that I spend my free time in Mr. Momoa's presence, where he would be deeply insulted by my recognition of him as a fantastic specimen of the human male? Do you fantasize that I talk about Mr. Momoa at every opportunity and have nothing else going on in my life?

I'm quite happy for Eddie Izzard to wear mini-skirts, even if I don't think they're particularly flattering. Izzard is free to identify however the hell he wants. But unless Eddie is literally taking part in this conversation right now, I also don't see any reason why I should pretend that I perceive Izzard as anything other than the male that he is. If you think it's "blatantly insulting at every opportunity" for me to accurately identify that Izzard is an adult human male - and therefore a man - that's your own problem.

I have no problem at all with Izzard dressing and presenting however he wishes to. But his wishes and desires for comportment to not place an obligation on me to pretend that he's a woman in any meaningful way.

 

[Emily Lake]

And, while it's apparently offensive to the mindset of progressives who want academia to be their wholly-owned church, your outgroup are even allowed to openly disagree with you in a public sociology class

To this, on the other hand: the public has every right to expect science, not religion, in a science class. That is also a clause of the first amendment. The government does not and cannot endorse a Biblical view of womanhood over that which scientific consensus defines. You can teach "people in x group believe y", because that is a fact. You cannot teach those beliefs as facts. That is indoctrination, and the government is not supposed to take sides on inter-religious disputes.

I completely agree with you on this.

Yet you think I should be selling a pack of pseudo-scientific lies about sex and gender in my classroom? Come off it.

Nope. I think that what you're selling is a bunch of woo that is rooted in baseless belief.

I agree with your statement; I disagree with your assumptions about what constitutes religion. You seem to be teaching that an unverifiable and entirely subjective self-declared feeling of gender supersedes the objectively observable reality of sex. That's not science.

 

[Politesse]

Nope. I think that what you're selling is a bunch of woo that is rooted in baseless belief

And backed by easily demonstrable science.

You seem to be teaching that an unverifiable and entirely subjective self-declared feeling of gender supersedes the objectively observable reality of sex. That's not science.

This is not correct. Sex and gender are not synonymous, nor is there any need for one of them to "win" a stupid fucking right wing culture war.

 

[Bomb#20]

I'm quite happy for Eddie Izzard to wear mini-skirts, even if I don't think they're particularly flattering. Izzard is free to identify however the hell he wants. But unless Eddie is literally taking part in this conversation right now, I also don't see any reason why I should pretend that I perceive Izzard as anything other than the male that he is. If you think it's "blatantly insulting at every opportunity" for me to accurately identify that Izzard is an adult human male - and therefore a man - that's your own problem.

I have no problem at all with Izzard dressing and presenting however he wishes to. But his wishes and desires for comportment to not place an obligation on me to pretend that he's a woman in any meaningful way.

You appear to be illicitly* jumping from the premise

Emily ... does not have a "right" to have her opinions coddled to by others.**​

to the conclusion

Eddie Izzard does not have a "right" to have his opinions coddled to by others.​

That is the classic "Fallacy of Not Taking Rank on the Progressive Stack into Account". You can find it in one of those lists of logical fallacies that abound on the internet. Eddie Izzard is an aristocrat. Know your place, peasant!*

(* Note for the sarcasm impaired: [/sarcasm])

(** According to Politesse)

 

[Bomb#20]

Someone is posting without searching first. I hope they read this Wikipedia link.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

Singular they, along with its inflected or derivative forms, them, their, theirs, and themselves (also themself and theirself), is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun. It typically occurs with an indeterminate antecedent, in sentences such as:

"Somebody left their umbrella in the office. Could you please let them know where they can get it?"[1]

"My personal rule is to never trust anyone who says that they had a good time in high school."[2]

"The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay."[3]

"But a journalist should not be forced to reveal their sources."[3]

This use of singular they had emerged by the 14th century, about a century after the plural they.[4][5][2] It has been commonly employed in everyday English ever since and has gained currency in official contexts. Singular they has been criticised since the mid-18th century by prescriptive commentators who consider it an error.[6] Its continued use in modern standard English has become more common and formally accepted with the move toward gender-neutral language.[7][8] Some early-21st-century style guides described it as colloquial and less appropriate in formal writing.[9][10] However, by 2020, most style guides accepted the singular they as a personal pronoun.[11][12][13][14]

In the early 21st century, use of singular they with known individuals emerged for people who do not exclusively identify as male or female, as ias in, for example, "This is my friend, Jay. I met them at work."[15]

I think the discussion between Bomb and me has transcended that Wikipedia article.

This whole rabbit hole is one we went down because of Jarhyn's assertion that using "they" for a specific named individual is "plain and common English". It's a popular opinion these days, and quoting authorities like Janice's is the go-to argument for it -- people do what Janice did here all the time. Which is kind of anomalous when you think about it. It's as though millions of people have spontaneously convinced themselves that seven hundred years of speakers using "their" for indeterminate antecedents such as "somebody" is relevant to whether using it for Robert is "plain and common English", but that seven hundred years of speakers not using "their" for determinate antecedents such as "Robert" is not relevant to whether using it for Robert is "plain and common English".

 

[Jarhyn]

..or maybe for the last 700 years or so there hasn't been much opportunity to recognize that the pre-scientific understanding of human sex and social development was pre-scientific, that the church's suppression of "third gender" and "gender atypical groups" as heresy was ill-informed, and that the entirety of only-two-gendered speech is itself a variety of newspeak designed or otherwise enforced to make it impossible (or at least difficult) to have certain discourse (as if it took George Orwell writing a book about it before anyone could possibly engage in such an activity, or that he was exclusively warning against progressives rather than conservatives).

Here we have people attempting to maintain control over language to prevent ideas from even being discussable, maintaining rigid control over language for political purposes. They are doing it, ironically enough, by trying to redefine Newspeak so that people can't even have a word to express "maintaining control over language so as to prevent discourse they dislike".

Generally in the past 700 years when people expressed that they were walking away from the binary they were declared heretical and killed. This has been going on for centuries and it's NOT new, even if it IS "newspeak". We have been living in a world where there are tacit lies built right into language to deny people's existence, and when language flexes to recognize not that people don't actually need to hold each other to "he" and "she", lo and behold people come out of the woodwork to declare HERESY, here and now by playing the victim!

700 years of English tradition are nobody's master, and a poor excuse to engage in actual Ingsoc-style Newspeak. You are enforcing the tacit assumptions made for over a thousand years because those who would disabuse such notions were shoved down memory holes. Pretending you aren't just because the Newspeak dance started before you were born is just straight up ignorance.

You are here in this thread arguing against any language allowing conversation of third gender people.

 

[Emily Lake]

Nope. I think that what you're selling is a bunch of woo that is rooted in baseless belief

And backed by easily demonstrable science.

Exactly what "science" demonstrates that woman is a feeling inside a person's head, with no connection to observable reality? What "science" demonstrates that any male who makes the claim to feel like a woman - even if they can't even remotely explain what that means - is transformed into a being that is indistinguishable from female human beings? What "science" demonstrates that a male with womanly feelings inside their mind somehow loses every ounce of athletic advantage that is conferred to them as a result of having a male anatomy?

You seem to be teaching that an unverifiable and entirely subjective self-declared feeling of gender supersedes the objectively observable reality of sex. That's not science.

This is not correct. Sex and gender are not synonymous, nor is there any need for one of them to "win" a stupid fucking right wing culture war.

If there's no need for one of the to "win", then I assume you're perfectly fine with sex-specific services and spaces remaining sex-specific, and excluding males regardless of how they identify?

 

[Emily Lake]

This whole rabbit hole is one we went down because of Jarhyn's assertion that using "they" for a specific named individual is "plain and common English".

It's no plain and common english. It's bespoke jargon that a small group of activists is trying to coerce everyone else on the planet to adopt.

Although... I'm about a hair's breadth away from saying "screw it" and deciding that I'm not going to play the pronoun police's game at all, and everybody will be referenced as "it" for singular entities and "the group" for multiple entities.

 

[Bomb#20]

I think the discussion between Bomb and me has transcended that Wikipedia article.

This whole rabbit hole is one we went down because of Jarhyn's assertion that using "they" for a specific named individual is "plain and common English". It's a popular opinion these days, and quoting authorities like Janice's is the go-to argument for it -- people do what Janice did here all the time. Which is kind of anomalous when you think about it. It's as though millions of people have spontaneously convinced themselves that seven hundred years of speakers using "their" for indeterminate antecedents such as "somebody" is relevant to whether using it for Robert is "plain and common English", but that seven hundred years of speakers not using "their" for determinate antecedents such as "Robert" is not relevant to whether using it for Robert is "plain and common English".

Oh, of course -- it's because until recently personal names that didn't indicate sex were rare. First names were gendered, and when people were identified by last name a title like Mr. or Mrs. was used, or else a job title that implied sex by social convention*. So anyone assuming singular "they" was for antecedents of unknown sex wouldn't notice the absence of specific named individuals among the antecedents in the corpus as a datum needing to be taken into account. The counterexamples Lagunoff points out to disprove that assumption are not obvious. She is very good at this! Thanks for the link.

(* The famous polio nurse was called "Sister Kenny" because the Australian Army had invented a gendered rank. "Sister" meant "Lieutenantess".)

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It's never women insisting this - it's always males who are demanding that if women don't submissively accept any male who says they have gendery feels as being just as much a women as they are then we're hurting women.

Are you... seriously denying the very existence of non-bigoted women? I assure you, not every woman is a 19th century schoolmarm. ...

Are you denying the very existence of women who want a man free place for personal business?

Obviously not. Everyone knows that trans exclusionary feminists exist, they are as loud and public about their beliefs as a person can be. But no faith group should be allowed to conduct the affairs of others.

The longer you talk to a "classical liberal", the less liberal their views turn out to actually be. Ever notice that?

"Progressive" liberals like you and Jarhyn I find even more so.
Tom

I guess answering one cheap shot with another is fair enough, but I assure you that my ingroup's liberty, democratic rule, and individual franchise sit at the very center of my political philosophy. No one has a right to tell someone else what they are... They are free to do as they like within their congregations or in their kitchens, but not in a public sociology class.

FIFY.

You evidently think you have a right to tell Emily and women who think like her what they are -- that they're 19th century schoolmarms and that they're a faith group. And so you do -- that goes with the whole First Amendment thing. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but your outgroup have free speech rights too.

Yes, we have the right to not be civil, not be considerate, or to not treat others with dignity. You go on and rock those rights!

 

[Bomb#20]

This whole rabbit hole is one we went down because of Jarhyn's assertion that using "they" for a specific named individual is "plain and common English".

It's no plain and common english. It's bespoke jargon that a small group of activists is trying to coerce everyone else on the planet to adopt.

Although... I'm about a hair's breadth away from saying "screw it" and deciding that I'm not going to play the pronoun police's game at all, and everybody will be referenced as "it" for singular entities and "the group" for multiple entities.

Works for me -- "it" is the conventional English pronoun for referring to bombs.

 

[Bomb#20]

Here we have people attempting to maintain control over language to prevent ideas from even being discussable, maintaining rigid control over language for political purposes. ...
You are here in this thread arguing against any language allowing conversation of third gender people.

... says the guy who had my earlier post censored for using actual third-person singular nongendered pronouns. You do not have an intellectually honest reason to believe the garbage you write about me. You are making baseless damaging false accusations with malice and with reckless disregard for the truth, and you are engaging in systematic self-deception.

 

[Bomb#20]

No one has a right to tell someone else what they are...

You evidently think you have a right to tell Emily and women who think like her what they are -- that they're 19th century schoolmarms and that they're a faith group. And so you do -- that goes with the whole First Amendment thing. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but your outgroup have free speech rights too.

Yes, we have the right to not be civil, not be considerate, or to not treat others with dignity. You go on and rock those rights!

Tell me. Jimmy, exactly which unscientific belief of mine or Emily's are you volunteering to pretend to believe in the course of your discussions with third parties for the sake of being civil, and considerate, and treating others with dignity?

 

[Elixir]

. It takes intelligence to produce such great satire, and very intelligent people generally agree with me!

Two sentences:
“As an ecosexual vegan intersectional feminist, I am surely better qualified than anyone to understand that ours is the most oppressive society on earth.”
And
“With any luck, Murray will be arrested soon and we can all get back to the business of promoting tolerance.”

 

[southernhybrid]

I have no intentions of getting involved in this flame throwing discussion, but I read, what I thought was an interesting article that included scientific evidence for transgenderism, social and cultural reasons for nonbinary id, along with the fact that a lot of today's teens seem to be identifying, at least temporarily as nonbinary, while many of them will eventually identify as their birth gender or identify as transgender. It discusses a number of cultures were nonbinary Id is commonly accepted and has been for a long time etc. I hope that at least anyone who is says they are open minded will read it.

It also mentions the new pronoun that is sometimes used for nonbinary individuals, instead of they/them. The only problem I have with the they/them pronoun is for example, if a nonbinary person is coming to my house, I could use their name to announce they are coming, but it would be hard to say.....they are coming or they is coming over, because regardless if you identify as two genders, you are still just a single person and I think that is where the pronoun problem comes into view, not when it's used as I did in the initial part of my sentence.

Have fun with your hate /s. Imo, the issue, is simply that things that were not recently common in our culture are slow for everyone to accept and not everyone will ever accept these changes, usually due to religion ingrained beliefs. Now that we have more evidence, perhaps the more open minded among us will consider that they've been wrong about certain things and come around. Unless I missed it, which I may have since I was sleepy when I read the article I'm going to link, I'm not sure we have scientific evidence yet for nonbinary ID, but there is plenty of social science and cultural evidence for it. I'm bowing out. I hate endless discussions where people begin to misunderstand each other and nothing is accomplished. I just hope that at least a few of you will read my linked article.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/how-science-is-helping-us-understand-gender/

Here's a small sample below:

She has always felt more boyish than girlish.

From an early age, E, as she prefers to be called for this story, hated wearing dresses, liked basketball, skateboarding, video games. When we met in May in New York City (New York, United States) at an end-of-the-year show for her high school speech team, E was wearing a tailored Brooks Brothers suit and a bow tie from her vast collection. With supershort red hair, a creamy complexion, and delicate features, the 14-year-old looked like a formally dressed, earthbound Peter Pan.

Later that evening E searched for the right label for her gender identity. “Transgender” didn’t quite fit, she told me. For one thing she was still using her birth name and still preferred being referred to as “she.” And while other trans kids often talk about how they’ve always known they were born in the “wrong” body, she said, “I just think I need to make alterations in the body I have, to make it feel like the body I need it to be.” By which she meant a body that doesn’t menstruate and has no breasts, with more defined facial contours and “a ginger beard.” Does that make E a trans guy? A girl who is, as she put it, “insanely androgynous”? Or just someone who rejects the trappings of traditional gender roles altogether?

You’ve probably heard a lot of stories like E’s recently. But that’s the whole point: She’s questioning her gender identity, rather than just accepting her hobbies and wardrobe choices as those of a tomboy, because we’re talking so much about transgender issues these days. These conversations have led to better head counts of transgender Americans, with a doubling,