They/Them She/Her He/Him - as you will

[Metaphor]

This new format is hell for me to edit. I never claimed that pronouns only referred to gender. Pronouns refer to sex or to gender depending on the context.

My operating context is that pronouns always refer to gender in non-animal objects, and they always refer to sex in animals (in English).

Some activists and their supporters demand that the rules of engagement be changed, and that pronouns now refer to a person's 'gender' when that person has decided that's what they want (and some jurisdictions use the force of law to punish people who do not or cannot conform to this change). It is one thing to demand this change. It is another to assume that people who use pronouns to refer to sex are mean or thoughtless, and it is another again to gaslight people into thinking it was always thus.

And it is another to insist pronouns always and only refer to sex, and that people always use them to refer only to sex, so that one can be unkind or an ass.

BTW, your baby example is incredibly dumb. Most people when they encounter a baby, use a pronoun based on their perception of the baby's sex (i.e. the gender), not because they have viewed baby genitalia.

What is with the gender ideologue's obsession with genitals? When did I mention genitals?

Parents everywhere, in every culture (as far as I know), openly and freely reveal the sex of their children to all and sundry, in some cases starting from before the birth of that child. My own sex was revealed in that way, back when people advertised it in newspaper classifieds - my parent's names, the date of my birth, and the revelation that I was a baby boy.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Perception is almost always based on sex. And it is ALWAYS based on the person doing the perceiving, not on the internal concepts of the person being perceived.

No matter how they self-identify, no matter how they feel inside... I perceive Eddie Izzard and Alex Drummond to be males. If I ever run into either of them in real life, I will engage in the polite fiction of using their preferred feminine pronouns. But inside my head they are both unquestionably men.

Your insistence that what is in your head matters more than what is in their head is absurd!

That you term is "polite fiction" is flat out arrogance. It makes it sound like they are playing D&D and it is just a game or a phase or an act.

This is their identity, who they know they are, who they had to struggle in our world to be openly. But it is so nice of you to pretend that you give a fuck how they feel.

 

[TomC]

Ships are called 'she', because in English, ships have the gender 'female'.

Actually, no. Sorry. The English language does not gender the noun, 'ship.' That's a nautical tradition, not a language rule.

Probably because the traditional male crew would rather "swab her decks", rather than "his". Or go for a cruise on "her", rather than "him".

Tom

Some of the male crew, I'm sure. Though I hear--and this might just be a rumour--there was some sodomy at sea.

Probably most of the male crew.

But the all male community of a ships crew or the Catholic priesthood will attract a statistically abnormal number of a certain sort of male.

Then there's the prison thing. Men will be boys...
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

If this is a joke, I freely confess I don't get it.

Admittedly it was.

But what was the joke? Are there people who think insects are not animals?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Is it? My tomboy / firecracker daughter is mistaken for a boy at times (she doesn't like that), and it is based almost exclusively on her behavior, very energetic and not quiet / refined. Heck, she's been decked out in pink and a skirt and gets called a boy!

Yes, it is. And you are now making the same mistake. The properties used to assess whether a person is a boy need not be the same as the properties that 'boy' refers to, or the properties the term 'boy', by its meaning, attributes when used. The point is that your daughte is not a boy, and the people who mistake her for a boy at times would not classify her as a boy if they had all of the relevant information at their disposal. They would be ready to realize they are mistaken, even if they are speaking NW-English.

In one case at the zoo, we got to the lions and she was roaring and bouncy. The guy next to her says to their own smaller child, 'look at that boy...' She replied, "I'm a girl". The father was taken aback, "But you were roaring..." His entire estimation of my daughter's gender was based on her behavior.

His estimation was about whether your child was a girl or a boy. Is that 'gender'? (I ask because 'gender' seems to be a word of confusion).

That aside, your example illustrates the mistake in Rhea's (and now your) reasoning very well: notice that he used a behavior - roaring - as a means to ascertain whether a person was a boy or a girl, but his assessment was erroneous, and it would be a mistake to think on the basis of examples like that that the term 'boy' refers to children who roar, or is about whether a child roars. Rather, some people use roaring behavior as an indirect means of ascertaining whether a child is a boy, though they are willing to modify their assessment on the basis of more evidence.


By the way, as one can tell from Metaphor's posts, he is aware of the fact that humans generally can nearly always correctly ascertain the sex of a person without ever looking at the genitals. There is no point in arguing otherwise. What he is saying is that pronouns traditionally refer to sex, not to gender.

 

[laughing dog]

This new format is hell for me to edit. I never claimed that pronouns only referred to gender. Pronouns refer to sex or to gender depending on the context.

My operating context is that pronouns always refer to gender in non-animal objects, and they always refer to sex in animals (in English).

Some activists and their supporters demand that the rules of engagement be changed, and that pronouns now refer to a person's 'gender' when that person has decided that's what they want (and some jurisdictions use the force of law to punish people who do not or cannot conform to this change). It is one thing to demand this change. It is another to assume that people who use pronouns to refer to sex are mean or thoughtless, and it is another again to gaslight people into thinking it was always thus.

And it is another to insist pronouns always and only refer to sex, and that people always use them to refer only to sex, so that one can be unkind or an ass.

BTW, your baby example is incredibly dumb. Most people when they encounter a baby, use a pronoun based on their perception of the baby's sex (i.e. the gender), not because they have viewed baby genitalia.

What is with the gender ideologue's obsession with genitals? When did I mention genitals?

Don't know what your obsession with genitalia is.

Parents everywhere, in every culture (as far as I know), openly and freely reveal the sex of their children to all and sundry, in some cases starting from before the birth of that child. My own sex was revealed in that way, back when people advertised it in newspaper classifieds - my parent's names, the date of my birth, and the revelation that I was a baby boy.

Cool story. Not relevant as to how people perceive the gender/sex of someone else.

 

[Metaphor]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

 

[Gospel]

But what was the joke? Are there people who think insects are not animals?

The joke was that if people have issues with Gender identification in relation to sex in humans then why stop with humans? Let's tell the asexual worms to knock it off and accept a male or female identity, or cardinal birds stop being both male and females at the same time... Get it now? It was meant to trigger laughter but I failed. It's all good.

 

[laughing dog]

You are mistaken. Rhea's obvious point is that identification and use of pronouns is typically based on the visual external perception not actual knowledge of genitalia. The accuracy of the identification is irrelevant to her argument. Hence, your argument is irrelevant to her position.

No, her reasoning was:

All through history, the use we have used most often is based on how someone presents because we are not privvy to their genitals.

So it is almost always about gender. The gender they present with.

The problem with that sort of reasoning is that whether a term T refers to - or is about, which is about meaning, not reference but my point is applicable to both - X does not follow from the fact that the fact that an object A has property X is usually used to assess whether T is applicable to some A. That blocks the inference if meant as deductive. If meant as a probabilistic assessment, it fails too because it is easy to construct counterexamples.

Nothing blocks an inference - it may block the accuracy of the inference. So, your reasoning is fallacious.

 

[laughing dog]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

Nope. Perceptions can be wrong.

 

[laughing dog]

But what was the joke? Are there people who think insects are not animals?

The joke was that if people have issues with Gender identification in relation to sex in humans then why stop with humans? Let's tell the asexual worms to knock it off and accept a male or female identity, or cardinal birds stop being both male and females at the same time... Get it now? It was meant to trigger laughter but I failed. It's all good.

I got the joke. It is funny.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

Didn't you just agree with ld there? He said it is based on perception and you said you use perception to generate a pronoun.

 

[Metaphor]

Don't know what your obsession with genitalia is.

I don't have one. Rhea seems to though--she brings it up continuously even when people have not mentioned genitalia.

Nope. Perceptions can be wrong.

It's true that I can mis-sex somebody, and if I've mis-sexed them and I'm told that, I correct myself.

For example, if I accidentally mis-sex a baby by asking 'what's his name?' and the parent says 'her name is Elizabeth', I will revise my understanding of that baby's sex.

 

[Metaphor]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

Didn't you just agree with ld there? He said it is based on perception and you said you use perception to generate a pronoun.

My perception of a person's sex.

My perception can be right - and it is, about 99.9% of the time.

My perception can be wrong - in which case, I'll have mis-sexed the person.

Note, however, if an adult human whose sex is male says to me 'I am a woman', but I still call him 'he', I have not misperceived and I have not misgendered and I have not mis-sexed.

 

[Metaphor]

But what was the joke? Are there people who think insects are not animals?

The joke was that if people have issues with Gender identification in relation to sex in humans then why stop with humans? Let's tell the asexual worms to knock it off and accept a male or female identity, or cardinal birds stop being both male and females at the same time... Get it now? It was meant to trigger laughter but I failed. It's all good.

Animals don't have 'genders', at least they don't in the way I understand other people to use the term 'gender'.

Non-human animals have sexes, and sometimes those sexes are very different from sex in humans (mammals). Some animals (but not mammals) can change sex. Some animals don't reproduce sexually (so in one sense they are all-female). Who knows what the fuck's going on with bees. Most humans don't freely recognise the sex of animals they are not familiar with. I couldn't tell you the sex of most birds except adult peacocks. (Those peahens must be fucking wild in bed for the cocks to go to that much effort).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

Didn't you just agree with ld there? He said it is based on perception and you said you use perception to generate a pronoun.

My perception of a person's sex.

My perception can be right - and it is, about 99.9% of the time.

My perception can be wrong - in which case, I'll have mis-sexed the person.

Note, however, if an adult human whose sex is male says to me 'I am a woman', but I still call him 'he', I have not misperceived and I have not misgendered and I have not mis-sexed.

Nor have you actually understood the universe doesn't revolve around you. It seems somehow you think what is in your mind supercedes what is in their's. And that you think the dangling bits are more important than the part of a person that makes them sentient, and that the universe has purposed you to remind people what junk they've got stored away.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You are mistaken. Rhea's obvious point is that identification and use of pronouns is typically based on the visual external perception not actual knowledge of genitalia. The accuracy of the identification is irrelevant to her argument. Hence, your argument is irrelevant to her position.

No, her reasoning was:

All through history, the use we have used most often is based on how someone presents because we are not privvy to their genitals.

So it is almost always about gender. The gender they present with.

The problem with that sort of reasoning is that whether a term T refers to - or is about, which is about meaning, not reference but my point is applicable to both - X does not follow from the fact that the fact that an object A has property X is usually used to assess whether T is applicable to some A. That blocks the inference if meant as deductive. If meant as a probabilistic assessment, it fails too because it is easy to construct counterexamples.

Nothing blocks an inference - it may block the accuracy of the inference. So, your reasoning is fallacious.

Yes, in this context, "it blocks the inference if meant as deductive" means it does not logically follow. My reasoning is not fallacious, and cannot be made so by your misconstruing what I mean.

 

[Metaphor]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

Didn't you just agree with ld there? He said it is based on perception and you said you use perception to generate a pronoun.

My perception of a person's sex.

My perception can be right - and it is, about 99.9% of the time.

My perception can be wrong - in which case, I'll have mis-sexed the person.

Note, however, if an adult human whose sex is male says to me 'I am a woman', but I still call him 'he', I have not misperceived and I have not misgendered and I have not mis-sexed.

Nor have you actually understood the universe doesn't revolve around you.

It doesn't revolve around people who believe false things about themselves, either.

It seems somehow you think what is in your mind supercedes what is in their's.

No, actual reality rules over both of us. The person is either of the male sex or they are not.

And that you think the dangling bits are more important than the part of a person that makes them sentient,

The gender ideologue obsession with genitalia again!

and that the universe has purposed you to remind people what junk they've got stored away.

Society has many aspects of sex-segregation and I did not invent them. I am not offended when people 'remind' me of my junk by calling me 'he' (in fact, I'm rarely around when people are talking about me and not to me). Of course, I am not actually reminded of my 'junk' when people call me 'he'. I don't have the genital obsession that gender ideologues appear to have, with everything either reminding them of genitalia, or having their own obsession so out of control they see it in everyone else, too.

 

[Metaphor]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Perception is almost always based on sex. And it is ALWAYS based on the person doing the perceiving, not on the internal concepts of the person being perceived.

No matter how they self-identify, no matter how they feel inside... I perceive Eddie Izzard and Alex Drummond to be males. If I ever run into either of them in real life, I will engage in the polite fiction of using their preferred feminine pronouns. But inside my head they are both unquestionably men.

Your insistence that what is in your head matters more than what is in their head is absurd!

That you term is "polite fiction" is flat out arrogance. It makes it sound like they are playing D&D and it is just a game or a phase or an act.

This is their identity, who they know they are, who they had to struggle in our world to be openly. But it is so nice of you to pretend that you give a fuck how they feel.

Do you think Rachel Dolezal is black, and it's important to treat her as such? Is what you think about her more important than what she thinks? If people treated her as black, would you call that polite fiction 'arrogant'?

Do you pretend to give a fuck how Rachel Dolezal feels?

 

[Metaphor]

Ships are called 'she', because in English, ships have the gender 'female'.

Actually, no. Sorry. The English language does not gender the noun, 'ship.' That's a nautical tradition, not a language rule.

Probably because the traditional male crew would rather "swab her decks", rather than "his". Or go for a cruise on "her", rather than "him".

Tom

Some of the male crew, I'm sure. Though I hear--and this might just be a rumour--there was some sodomy at sea.

Probably most of the male crew.

But the all male community of a ships crew or the Catholic priesthood will attract a statistically abnormal number of a certain sort of male.

Then there's the prison thing. Men will be boys...
Tom

It was just a (hopefully, comic) indication that homos think there are more homos out there than there really are.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

Nope. Perceptions can be wrong.

When my youngest was six, we were walking thru the mall. He's got curly hair, his mother's cheekbones. Grandma's lips.
Passed a pair of teenaged (apparently) girls.
One said to the other, 'She's a cute little girl.'
The other replied, 'He's a little boy.'
The first, 'Then he's a VERY cute little boy.'

I've changed his diapers. He's a he. Alwsys been a he.
But has been percieved as a she more than once.
What's weird is no one gives a rat's about this story unless and until he wants to be perceived as a girl.

 

[laughing dog]

Don't know what your obsession with genitalia is.

I don't have one. Rhea seems to though--she brings it up continuously even when people have not mentioned genitalia.

Sure Jan.

Nope. Perceptions can be wrong.

It's true that I can mis-sex somebody, and if I've mis-sexed them and I'm told that, I correct myself.

For example, if I accidentally mis-sex a baby by asking 'what's his name?' and the parent says 'her name is Elizabeth', I will revise my understanding of that baby's sex.

In your example, you also misgender the baby.

 

[laughing dog]

You are mistaken. Rhea's obvious point is that identification and use of pronouns is typically based on the visual external perception not actual knowledge of genitalia. The accuracy of the identification is irrelevant to her argument. Hence, your argument is irrelevant to her position.

No, her reasoning was:

All through history, the use we have used most often is based on how someone presents because we are not privvy to their genitals.

So it is almost always about gender. The gender they present with.

The problem with that sort of reasoning is that whether a term T refers to - or is about, which is about meaning, not reference but my point is applicable to both - X does not follow from the fact that the fact that an object A has property X is usually used to assess whether T is applicable to some A. That blocks the inference if meant as deductive. If meant as a probabilistic assessment, it fails too because it is easy to construct counterexamples.

Nothing blocks an inference - it may block the accuracy of the inference. So, your reasoning is fallacious.

Yes, in this context, "it blocks the inference if meant as deductive" means it does not logically follow. My reasoning is not fallacious, and cannot be made so by your misconstruing what I mean.

Your response is mistaken in all aspects. Nothing external to a person can block their inference. Your reasoning is based on a false premise, hence it is fallacious not matter how many times you claim otherwise.

 

[Metaphor]

Don't know what your obsession with genitalia is.

I don't have one. Rhea seems to though--she brings it up continuously even when people have not mentioned genitalia.

Sure Jan.

Nope. Perceptions can be wrong.

It's true that I can mis-sex somebody, and if I've mis-sexed them and I'm told that, I correct myself.

For example, if I accidentally mis-sex a baby by asking 'what's his name?' and the parent says 'her name is Elizabeth', I will revise my understanding of that baby's sex.

In your example, you also misgender the baby.

No. I do not use pronouns to refer to 'gender', whatever that is. I use them to refer to sex.

I cannot misgender a baby because babies do not have a gender identity,

 

[laughing dog]

Don't know what your obsession with genitalia is.

I don't have one. Rhea seems to though--she brings it up continuously even when people have not mentioned genitalia.

Sure Jan.

Nope. Perceptions can be wrong.

It's true that I can mis-sex somebody, and if I've mis-sexed them and I'm told that, I correct myself.

For example, if I accidentally mis-sex a baby by asking 'what's his name?' and the parent says 'her name is Elizabeth', I will revise my understanding of that baby's sex.

In your example, you also misgender the baby.

No. I do not use pronouns to refer to 'gender', whatever that is. I use them to refer to sex.

Sure Jan, whatever make you feel secure.

I cannot misgender a baby because babies do not have a gender identity,

I forgot I was not in this world but Wonderland. In this world, people have gender and sex. Babies have gender identities even if they are not aware of them.

 

[ZiprHead]

I think this change and thread is going to make Metaphor's head explode.

Is your gender field entry, an inanimate thing, a cue that you prefer being referred to as "it"?
Tom

I don't care what you call me, just don't call me late for dinner.

 

[Metaphor]

I forgot I was not in this world but Wonderland. In this world, people have gender and sex. Babies have gender identities even if they are not aware of them.

I think this marks the exit ramp of discussion. I don't subscribe to your religion but I wish you all the best.

 

[laughing dog]

I forgot I was not in this world but Wonderland. In this world, people have gender and sex. Babies have gender identities even if they are not aware of them.

I think this marks the exit ramp of discussion. I don't subscribe to your religion but I wish you all the best.

I meant that babies do have an identity in a gender. And I suspect that babies after more than a couple of months have some awareness of their gender.

 

[Jarhyn]

It is a crap argument because it is imagining stuff instead of talking about actual transgender people. This type of person has always existed, and people are still struggling to come to grips with it, and addicted to labels. They are ignoring the human factors involved and nestling up with grammar as if it were some type of blankie.

I disagree with the sentiment of your post.

Yes, people with gender dysphoria have always existed. But for the most part, nobody has trouble coming to grips with people who have extreme dysphoria.

Umm... bullshit!

It doesn't bother Emily Lake =/ no one is bothered by it. We only decriminalized gay sex two decades ago!

They've been around for pretty much all of recorded history. They've mostly been males who strongly and persistently identify as female, and there is likely a gestational trigger or a genetic component to that occurrence.

And they have, in the majority of human history, been accommodated and incorporated into society.

Really, because changing a pronoun here or there is making a number of people freak the heck out.

What people are not on-board with is...

Umm, you are speaking for A LOT of people here.

extending the entire concept to include self-declaration with no history and no reasonable definition of "transgender", whereby it can apply to anyone for any reason whatsoever. What people are not on-board with is extending it to include people who identify as non-human, or as no-sex, or as fictional animal characters, or as mythical beings... and who wish to be accommodated as such. What people often object to is the demand that everyone else pretend that this internal view of themselves is more important than, and should replace the reality of, sex... and should grant immediate and unquestioned access to sex-exclusive space or to services where sex is material and relevant.

You are stuffing so many words into people's mouths here, one would swear it was Thanksgiving Dinner.

For someone one who makes a lot of references to rape, she DOES have a way of stuffing things into folks' mouths.

You know, my husband has food trauma, because his mother would force feed him when he would not eat what he was given. It has led to certain health problems, even.

Really, humanity only really offers (T or E)*(0...1...inf.) for puberty purposes, and for hormonal state.

Various people function at varying levels of happiness and capability at varying positions on that scale, usually in the 0-1 range, where 1 is exposure of someone at one or the other of the highest two distinct peaks in the distribution.

What determines where someone best functions is the shape of their brains.

Beyond this there is a highly comorbid distribution within a variety of behaviors and presentations and modes of communication that splits in similarly binary ways.

In any given situation people generally, on account of our herd instincts, seek to resonate more strongly with one than the other. And on account of who we are, something happens to make us want one more than the other of any given offering of behavior, or perhaps some other less common thing off the binary entirely.

I forgot I was not in this world but Wonderland. In this world, people have gender and sex. Babies have gender identities even if they are not aware of them.

I think this marks the exit ramp of discussion. I don't subscribe to your religion but I wish you all the best.

It's science, but I think you hit an exit off that a few mile markers back. Or possibly a few state lines ago.

Have you evolved your model at all since the stonewall era?

 

[Metaphor]

It is a crap argument because it is imagining stuff instead of talking about actual transgender people. This type of person has always existed, and people are still struggling to come to grips with it, and addicted to labels. They are ignoring the human factors involved and nestling up with grammar as if it were some type of blankie.

I disagree with the sentiment of your post.

Yes, people with gender dysphoria have always existed. But for the most part, nobody has trouble coming to grips with people who have extreme dysphoria.

Umm... bullshit!

It doesn't bother Emily Lake =/ no one is bothered by it. We only decriminalized gay sex two decades ago!

They've been around for pretty much all of recorded history. They've mostly been males who strongly and persistently identify as female, and there is likely a gestational trigger or a genetic component to that occurrence.

And they have, in the majority of human history, been accommodated and incorporated into society.

Really, because changing a pronoun here or there is making a number of people freak the heck out.

What people are not on-board with is...

Umm, you are speaking for A LOT of people here.

extending the entire concept to include self-declaration with no history and no reasonable definition of "transgender", whereby it can apply to anyone for any reason whatsoever. What people are not on-board with is extending it to include people who identify as non-human, or as no-sex, or as fictional animal characters, or as mythical beings... and who wish to be accommodated as such. What people often object to is the demand that everyone else pretend that this internal view of themselves is more important than, and should replace the reality of, sex... and should grant immediate and unquestioned access to sex-exclusive space or to services where sex is material and relevant.

You are stuffing so many words into people's mouths here, one would swear it was Thanksgiving Dinner.

For someone one who makes a lot of references to rape, she DOES have a way of stuffing things into folks' mouths.

You know, my husband has food trauma, because his mother would force feed him when he would not eat what he was given. It has led to certain health problems, even.

Really, humanity only really offers (T or E)*(0...1...inf.) for puberty purposes, and for hormonal state.

Various people function at varying levels of happiness and capability at varying positions on that scale, usually in the 0-1 range, where 1 is exposure of someone at one or the other of the highest two distinct peaks in the distribution.

What determines where someone best functions is the shape of their brains.

Beyond this there is a highly comorbid distribution within a variety of behaviors and presentations and modes of communication that splits in similarly binary ways.

In any given situation people generally, on account of our herd instincts, seek to resonate more strongly with one than the other. And on account of who we are, something happens to make us want one more than the other of any given offering of behavior, or perhaps some other less common thing off the binary entirely.

I forgot I was not in this world but Wonderland. In this world, people have gender and sex. Babies have gender identities even if they are not aware of them.

I think this marks the exit ramp of discussion. I don't subscribe to your religion but I wish you all the best.

It's science, but I think you hit an exit off that a few mile markers back. Or possibly a few state lines ago.

Have you evolved your model at all since the stonewall era?

Babies don't have a gender identity. Babies don't know that there are two sexes in mammals. Babies do not perceive themselves as a particular gender. Babies can feel pain and they can feel comfort. To say babies have a gender identity is to say babies have souls.

I don't subscribe to your religion.

 

[Emily Lake]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Perception is almost always based on sex. And it is ALWAYS based on the person doing the perceiving, not on the internal concepts of the person being perceived.

Of course perception is based on the one who is perceiving. No one is claiming otherwise.

Perception is not based on sex (which, according to Metaphor, is what someone IS) but on the perceived sex (which correlates more to gender).

I respectfully disagree. I think the perception correlates much more to actual sex than to gender. Case in point: I perceive the majority of transgender people as their actual sex when I see them. I don't perceive them as their gender. I respect that they are attempting to portray a sex different to their body's... but I still perceive them as their actual sex. The ones that I perceive as their gender are those who have had significant surgery done in order to alter their secondary and tertiary sex characteristics.

No matter how they self-identify, no matter how they feel inside... I perceive Eddie Izzard and Alex Drummond to be males. If I ever run into either of them in real life, I will engage in the polite fiction of using their preferred feminine pronouns. But inside my head they are both unquestionably men.

Which is the way most people in the world operate.

That would be perceiving people based on their sex, rather than their gender.

 

[laughing dog]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Perception is almost always based on sex. And it is ALWAYS based on the person doing the perceiving, not on the internal concepts of the person being perceived.

Of course perception is based on the one who is perceiving. No one is claiming otherwise.

Perception is not based on sex (which, according to Metaphor, is what someone IS) but on the perceived sex (which correlates more to gender).

I respectfully disagree. I think the perception correlates much more to actual sex than to gender. Case in point: I perceive the majority of transgender people as their actual sex when I see them. I don't perceive them as their gender. I respect that they are attempting to portray a sex different to their body's... but I still perceive them as their actual sex. The ones that I perceive as their gender are those who have had significant surgery done in order to alter their secondary and tertiary sex characteristics.

Well, I perceive them as their gender most of the time, unless I knew them before their transformation.

No matter how they self-identify, no matter how they feel inside... I perceive Eddie Izzard and Alex Drummond to be males. If I ever run into either of them in real life, I will engage in the polite fiction of using their preferred feminine pronouns. But inside my head they are both unquestionably men.

Which is the way most people in the world operate.

That would be perceiving people based on their sex, rather than their gender.

Nope.

 

[Emily Lake]

Is it? My tomboy / firecracker daughter is mistaken for a boy at times (she doesn't like that), and it is based almost exclusively on her behavior, very energetic and not quiet / refined. Heck, she's been decked out in pink and a skirt and gets called a boy!

In one case at the zoo, we got to the lions and she was roaring and bouncy. The guy next to her says to their own smaller child, 'look at that boy...' She replied, "I'm a girl". The father was taken aback, "But you were roaring..." His entire estimation of my daughter's gender was based on her behavior.

His entire perception of your daughter was based on regressive sex-based stereotypes. Ones that overwhelmingly limit girls and reduce their freedom and agency.

Roar away, girl, roar away. Do it louder, with more energy. Don't be quiet and refined and placid and accommodating.

Thanks for ignoring the point about perception and how pronouns are used based on perception not the Chromosomes.

I betcha that once your daughter hits puberty, she will no longer be perceived as a boy because she wears pants and like lions. Why do you think I might be willing to make that bet?

Also, once again, it's not chromosomes that define sex. It's the reproductive strategy around which one's body is formed. Chromosomes are the ingredients for the cake, not the cake itself.

New thing I learned today: It's one specific gene that guides sex during gestation, the SRY gene. In 99.999% of people, that SRY gene is located on the Y chromosome. In some people, that SRY gene is non-functional, so you end up with and CY chromosome but a person with CAIS, which is female because their body is organized around the production of eggs rather than sperm. It's organized around eggs because the SRY gene cannot be activated during development. Similarly, there are a very, very few people with XX chromosomes, where the SRY gene has been inadvertently transcribed to one of the legs on the one of the X chromosomes. Those people are male, because they SRY gets activated during gestation and they develop a body organized around the production of sperm. In both of those cases, the vast majority of those people are sterile, but that doesn't alter their sex. Because sex is defined based on the reproductive strategy around which your body is organized.

 

[Emily Lake]

Your insistence that what is in your head matters more than what is in their head is absurd!

That you term is "polite fiction" is flat out arrogance. It makes it sound like they are playing D&D and it is just a game or a phase or an act.

This is their identity, who they know they are, who they had to struggle in our world to be openly. But it is so nice of you to pretend that you give a fuck how they feel.

Males are not females; females are not males. A male person who feels like a female is still a male. That I politely refer to them as if they are female is a polite fiction; they are not female. A female person who feels like a male is still a female. That I politely refer to them as if they are male is a polite fiction; they are not male.

It's not "what's going on in my head" here. It's what reality is. It need not be a phase or a game at all, but their dysphoria also does not alter the nature of the objective world and the reality of sex.

And despite your condescension, yes, it *is* nice for people to care about how other people feel about themselves. If it weren't nice to use peoples preferred pronouns, I wouldn't bother doing it. I do it only and specifically because it is nice to do so.

It's certainly not because I somehow think that belief alters reality.

 

[TomC]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

This is the problem. You find your own perception more important than another, autonomous, human. You can do that, but you're being rude.

Up thread, I mentioned Andrea. Very tall, big shoulders, wearing a dress and lipstick. I introduced myself as Tom, she introduced herself as Andrea. Her physique was male, her attire female. A female gendered name was the tie breaker, this person I'd never met before preferred female references. It just wasn't that difficult to navigate the cues towards a civil conversation. Because Andrea's sex is utterly unimportant to me. Her gender only mattered out of politeness. All I wanted was to get along with a stranger. We were early to an event and sat around in the lobby for awhile, having a pleasant conversation. That's how I know she was born Andrew.

Bottom line is simple. Play nice. You needn't be honest or precise about everything. Better if you're not.
Tom

I remember laughing at a cartoon. A guy is in a hospital bed, bandaged and splinted from head to toe, talking to another guy. He says to the guy, "But that dress really did make her ass look fat."

 

[Emily Lake]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

Nope. Perceptions can be wrong.

If I perceive Eddie Izzard to be male, and refer to Izzard using "he"... am I wrong?

I agree that perceptions can be incorrect. What I'm unsure of is what you think constitutes a wrong perception in this context.

 

[Emily Lake]

Animals don't have 'genders', at least they don't in the way I understand other people to use the term 'gender'.

Non-human animals have sexes, and sometimes those sexes are very different from sex in humans (mammals). Some animals (but not mammals) can change sex. Some animals don't reproduce sexually (so in one sense they are all-female). Who knows what the fuck's going on with bees. Most humans don't freely recognise the sex of animals they are not familiar with. I couldn't tell you the sex of most birds except adult peacocks. (Those peahens must be fucking wild in bed for the cocks to go to that much effort).

To the extent that animals have sex-based functional roles within their groups, I'll give them gender as a term for sex-differentiated behaviors and roles. Male lions guard the pride and keep other males away (also preventing their kittens from being killed or eaten). Female lions do the majority of the hunting. I would be willing to accept "gender" as the term for those functional roles.

If that's not what gender is being used to mean, however, then I would challenge whether humans have gender either. We have socially-enforced sex stereotypes.

 

[Emily Lake]

Nor have you actually understood the universe doesn't revolve around you. It seems somehow you think what is in your mind supercedes what is in their's. And that you think the dangling bits are more important than the part of a person that makes them sentient, and that the universe has purposed you to remind people what junk they've got stored away.

This is cherry picking. You're essentially arguing that someone else's feelings about their soul in contradiction to their sex is more important than my (or Met's) objective observation of reality.

How do you determine whose mind gets to win? The one whose mind agrees with objective observations or the one whose mind does not? I happen to go with courtesy because it's nice to do so, but certainly not because I think the mind that disagrees with objective observation is *right*.

 

[Emily Lake]

In your example, you also misgender the baby.

Is it your belief that the infant has a gender identity?

 

[Emily Lake]

I forgot I was not in this world but Wonderland. In this world, people have gender and sex. Babies have gender identities even if they are not aware of them.

Bullshit. I don't have a gender. I have a sex, and I have a set of regressive and harmful sex-based stereotypes that society tries really hard to force onto me. But I do NOT have a gender, nor do I have a gender identity.

This is analogous to a theist insisting that atheists have religion because all people have religion, the atheist just doesn't understand or acknowledge their faith. I know you've run across that argument, and I know you view that as a fallacious argument.

The pattern of the argument is no different from yours.

 

[Emily Lake]

Well, I perceive them as their gender most of the time, unless I knew them before their transformation.

I don't really understand this. What, in your view, are the markers of gender by which you perceive them?

Do you perceive Eddie Izzard as a female? Did you perceive Eddie Izzard as a female in 1999?

 

[TomC]

To say babies have a gender identity is to say babies have souls.

OMG!
Now you want to discuss souls?
Tom

 

[TomC]

Bullshit. I don't have a gender. I have a sex, and I have a set of regressive and harmful sex-based stereotypes that society tries really hard to force onto me. But I do NOT have a gender, nor do I have a gender identity.

Really?
Are you being sarcastic or something? Pardon my ignorance, what?

I had never considered your gender in question. (I assumed it matched your sex, but I don't care enough to think about it)

Did I miss something somehow?
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

This is the problem. You find your own perception more important than another, autonomous, human. You can do that, but you're being rude.

I'm going to attempt to take a middle ground on this. I might fail, but that's life.

What is the dividing line between courtesy and mandated conformity? In you example, you perceived Andrea to be male. Your eyeballs and your brain work just fine, and you're probably just as good at visually identifying sex as the rest of us. Andrea was in actuality male. You also behaved politely and treated Andrea as if you did NOT know that they were male, as if you THOUGHT that they were female. You engaged in polite fiction for their benefit and their peace of mind. And I'm guessing that Andrea knows you were engaging in polite fiction as well, and probably appreciate it.

Now lets add a hypothetical. Let's assume that Andrea is the broad shouldered person you encountered, wearing men's cut button-fly jeans, men's style cowboy boots, a men's cut button-up shirt, and sporting an impressive beard. Let's assume that Andrea is also loud, pushy, and is sexually aggressive toward the women who are present. Andrea *demands* that you treat them as a woman, and act like they're a woman.

How far does courtesy extend? Do you use female pronouns for Andrea, do you refer to them as a woman? Do you support them when they demand to use the ladies restroom? Do you take their side when they get pushy and handsy with the lesbian in the corner, because you accept that Andrea is a woman and is therefore a lesbian?

Now, let's add to that. What if the venue you were at *required* that you use people's pronouns, and rather than Andrea being a stranger that you just met... You've known them as Andrew for over a decade and they've never seemed at all transgender. What if you're pretty sure that "Andrea" is something that Andrew is doing for laughs or to get into the ladies room because he's a known creeper?

Does courtesy still apply?

My point here is NOT to imply that transgender people are bad in any way, or pretending, or anything of the sort. My point is to push the boundaries of how far courtesy and politeness should extend, and at what point objective reality steps in.

Scotland recently passed some regulation or whatnot (statute? rule?) so that police record the declared gender identity of a person being charged with a crime in all cases, and that they treat that person throughout the legal process on the basis of that declared gender identity. Scotland also defines rape as forcible nonconsensual penetration of the vagina, anus, or mouth with a penis. Forcible penetration with something other than a penis carries the same sentencing guidelines, but is not called 'rape'. So now, Scotland has taken the position that a male-bodied person who rapes another person but who declares themselves to be a woman must be recorded as a woman and referred to as a woman throughout their interactions with the justice system.

This means that the victim of a bepenised rapist is obligated to refer to their assailant as "she", regardless of how they perceive that person.

Do you think that it is right and appropriate for all parties that courtesy be given primacy in that situation?

 

[Emily Lake]

Bullshit. I don't have a gender. I have a sex, and I have a set of regressive and harmful sex-based stereotypes that society tries really hard to force onto me. But I do NOT have a gender, nor do I have a gender identity.

Really?
Are you being sarcastic or something? Pardon my ignorance, what?

I had never considered your gender in question. (I assumed it matched your sex, but I don't care enough to think about it)

Did I miss something somehow?
Tom

I reject gender. I've never conformed to society's standards of gender. When I was young, and gender was just another word for sex, I was fine with that. It was just a synonym. When the term began to be used to represent social stereotypes and sex-based roles I was okay with that usage, and I was also okay with the fact that I didn't fit those stereotypes. In fact, I considered it a great example of progress that I and other people could be "gender-benders" and reject those stereotypes for the smelly tripe that they are.

Now, however, we've entered a point in time where the term "gender" is being used to define an "identity", and that "identity" is rather strongly based on those stereotypes that I have rejected since I was a child.

I reject that meaning of the term, and I reject the ideology behind it. My SEX is female. And I have never hidden that. But I absolutely reject the attribution of any sort of gender to my person. I reject it in exactly the same way that I reject the attribution of any sort of faith or religion to my person. I do not believe in this conceptualization of gender. I find this conceptualization of gender to be harmful, regressive, and confining.

What you've missed is that the meaning of the term has changed, and that I reject the new meaning being foisted upon me.

I am female. I'm an adult female human. But if you are going to use the term "woman" to refer to the behaviors, characteristics, and social roles dropped on females, then I sir, am no woman. Nor am I a man. Nor am I non-binary. I'm agenderist.

 

[Metaphor]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

This is the problem. You find your own perception more important than another, autonomous, human. You can do that, but you're being rude.

It is not a problem that my perception aligns with reality. In fact, it is perceptions that do not align with reality that are the problem.

Are people being rude to Rachel Dolezal when they do not perceive her to be black, and refuse to accept her as black?

Up thread, I mentioned Andrea. Very tall, big shoulders, wearing a dress and lipstick. I introduced myself as Tom, she introduced herself as Andrea. Her physique was male, her attire female. A female gendered name was the tie breaker, this person I'd never met before preferred female references.

'Andrea' means 'manly'. I don't know if that is ironic or not.

It just wasn't that difficult to navigate the cues towards a civil conversation. Because Andrea's sex is utterly unimportant to me. Her gender only mattered out of politeness. All I wanted was to get along with a stranger. We were early to an event and sat around in the lobby for awhile, having a pleasant conversation. That's how I know she was born Andrew.

Bottom line is simple. Play nice. You needn't be honest or precise about everything. Better if you're not.
Tom

"Play nice"? Do you think people should accept Rachel Dolezal as black? That they should 'play nice' with her race identity?

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Objective reality is this:

1) I am a transgender person that is not easily offended, and

2) transgender people that actually are easily offended are just like anybody else that is easily offended.

It ain't my fault, but I told ya so.

 

[Metaphor]

I forgot I was not in this world but Wonderland. In this world, people have gender and sex. Babies have gender identities even if they are not aware of them.

Bullshit. I don't have a gender. I have a sex, and I have a set of regressive and harmful sex-based stereotypes that society tries really hard to force onto me. But I do NOT have a gender, nor do I have a gender identity.

This is analogous to a theist insisting that atheists have religion because all people have religion, the atheist just doesn't understand or acknowledge their faith. I know you've run across that argument, and I know you view that as a fallacious argument.

The pattern of the argument is no different from yours.

In a previous post, laughing dog said that 'gender' was how somebody perceived somebody else's sex. So, according to laughing dog's definition, you do have a gender--the sum total of how other people regard your sex, I guess?

If somebody's gender is my (society's) perception of their sex, then I am not 'misgendering' anybody by using pronouns that correspond to my perception of their sex. And if somebody's gender is their own perception of their own sex, then they can be wrong about their own sex, and why ought their misperception (where there gender and sex are not the same) be respected?

I don't have a gender, either. I am a man, not because 'man' is my self-identity, not because I have 'man-thoughts', but I am a man because I am an adult human male. If somebody took the brain out of my head, my dead body would be male, no matter what I thought about it.

I am also 6'8" with a size 15 shoe. No self-identity otherwise can make me shorter. Asking people to believe I was 5'2", just because I really wanted to be, would be the kind of nerve I wouldn't want in my tooth.

I also ethnically a Slav. No amount of pretending otherwise can change my ethnicity.

I was also born in a certain year, making me a certain age (I won't doxx myself here, though). No amount of pretending otherwise can change that, either.

 

[Rhea]

All through history, the use we have used most often is based on how someone presents because we are not privvy to their genitals.

This is misleading. It repeats the falsehood that the only way to distinguish between a male and a female human is through genital inspection. And that's simply untrue. Secondary and tertiary sex characteristics are pretty goddamned obvious, almost all the time. If a person puts a huge amount of effort into hiding or masking those characteristics, they can trick people into being uncertain or into thinking they're the opposite sex.

So, you are talking to someone who was misgendered CONSTANTLY throughout chilldhood.
You call my childhood - through my early 20s, “simply untrue.”

Your arrogance is astonishing to behold. As is your monumentally wrong claim.
Is there any point in reading any more of your post after you make such a blatantly unfactual claim?

 

[Metaphor]

All through history, the use we have used most often is based on how someone presents because we are not privvy to their genitals.

This is misleading. It repeats the falsehood that the only way to distinguish between a male and a female human is through genital inspection. And that's simply untrue. Secondary and tertiary sex characteristics are pretty goddamned obvious, almost all the time. If a person puts a huge amount of effort into hiding or masking those characteristics, they can trick people into being uncertain or into thinking they're the opposite sex.

So, you are talking to someone who was misgendered CONSTANTLY throughout chilldhood.

You mean, you were mis-sexed. People used a word for you that did not match the reality of your sex?