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

[Rhea]

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.

No here is where your conclusion is flawed. They used how a person presented to be perfectly, completely comfortable in deciding on a pronoun.

And now you’re trying to fight that and claim he wasn’t comfortable with it.
But he was.

And he had all the information that you have when deciding whether you are comfortable calling a person she or he in real life.

And yet here is a whole thread of people losing their shit over a voluntary field on an anonymous message board to let people know what gender they wish to be called. And the shit-losers are trying to say, “no! I won’t! I can’t! Woe!”

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.

And that is just bullshit and people fail at it all the time. ALL the time.
I don’t know what rock you live under, but in addition to having it happen to me repeatedly, even when I was wearing nail polish or earring, I also *do* it all the time. I can’t tell. Happens a lot.

So your claim that people can effortlessly tell is demonstrably flawed.
I expect you make the mistake and you’re just too sure of your own flawlessness to even know it.

 

[Metaphor]

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.

No here is where your conclusion is flawed. They used how a person presented to be perfectly, completely comfortable in deciding on a pronoun.

And now you’re trying to fight that and claim he wasn’t comfortable with it.
But he was.

And he had all the information that you have when deciding whether you are comfortable calling a person she or he in real life.

And yet here is a whole thread of people losing their shit over a voluntary field on an anonymous message board to let people know what gender they wish to be called. And the shit-losers are trying to say, “no! I won’t! I can’t! Woe!”

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.

And that is just bullshit and people fail at it all the time. ALL the time.
I don’t know what rock you live under, but in addition to having it happen to me repeatedly, even when I was wearing nail polish or earring, I also *do* it all the time. I can’t tell. Happens a lot.

So your claim that people can effortlessly tell is demonstrably flawed.
I expect you make the mistake and you’re just too sure of your own flawlessness to even know it.

No. Normal people can tell the sex of the person they are looking at and talking to, 99.9% of the time. I can tell the sex of a person over the telephone most of the time. Sometimes I'm not sure.

That you cannot do this yourself indicates that you might have a neurological difference to most people. People do not fail at it 'all the time'. They just don't. I'm sorry your experience is so atypical.

 

[laughing dog]

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.

No here is where your conclusion is flawed. They used how a person presented to be perfectly, completely comfortable in deciding on a pronoun.

And now you’re trying to fight that and claim he wasn’t comfortable with it.
But he was.

And he had all the information that you have when deciding whether you are comfortable calling a person she or he in real life.

And yet here is a whole thread of people losing their shit over a voluntary field on an anonymous message board to let people know what gender they wish to be called. And the shit-losers are trying to say, “no! I won’t! I can’t! Woe!”

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.

And that is just bullshit and people fail at it all the time. ALL the time.
I don’t know what rock you live under, but in addition to having it happen to me repeatedly, even when I was wearing nail polish or earring, I also *do* it all the time. I can’t tell. Happens a lot.

So your claim that people can effortlessly tell is demonstrably flawed.
I expect you make the mistake and you’re just too sure of your own flawlessness to even know it.

No. Normal people can tell the sex of the person they are looking at and talking to, 99.9% of the time.

Is this a data-driven claim that has a link or is it simply a conjecture?

 

[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.

Bullshit. I don't have a gender.

You are mistaken.

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.

You are mistaken. If you have a sex, you have a gender. Gender and sex are common synonyms. It really is that simple.

 

[Metaphor]

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.

No here is where your conclusion is flawed. They used how a person presented to be perfectly, completely comfortable in deciding on a pronoun.

And now you’re trying to fight that and claim he wasn’t comfortable with it.
But he was.

And he had all the information that you have when deciding whether you are comfortable calling a person she or he in real life.

And yet here is a whole thread of people losing their shit over a voluntary field on an anonymous message board to let people know what gender they wish to be called. And the shit-losers are trying to say, “no! I won’t! I can’t! Woe!”

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.

And that is just bullshit and people fail at it all the time. ALL the time.
I don’t know what rock you live under, but in addition to having it happen to me repeatedly, even when I was wearing nail polish or earring, I also *do* it all the time. I can’t tell. Happens a lot.

So your claim that people can effortlessly tell is demonstrably flawed.
I expect you make the mistake and you’re just too sure of your own flawlessness to even know it.

No. Normal people can tell the sex of the person they are looking at and talking to, 99.9% of the time.

Is this a data-driven claim that has a link or is it simply a conjecture?

It is my lived experience.

 

[Enigma]

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.

You are mistaken. If you have a sex, you have a gender. Gender and sex are common synonyms. It really is that simple.

You are claiming that gender and sex are synonyms, but the discussion about gender and sex throughout this entire thread has been predicated on the notion that they aren't the same thing.

Are you contending that gender and sex are the same thing?

If so, then what are you claiming is the solid definition of sex/gender? (i.e. Is someone male because they have male genetics and male dangly bits regardless of how they self-identify or Is someone male because of their self-identification as male regardless of whatever genetics and/or dangly bits they may or may not have?)

If not, then on what basis are you claiming that Emily Lake has a gender despite her claim otherwise? Why are you not extending her the same courtesy that has been repeatedly stated in this thread as essential to extend to everyone, namely respecting how people self identify?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

No here is where your conclusion is flawed. They used how a person presented to be perfectly, completely comfortable in deciding on a pronoun.

No, the problem with your reasoning remains the same: you are conflating the observations used to ascertain whether a person is a man or a woman (secondary sex characteristics) and/or to use a pronouns, with the properties that 'man' or 'woman' assign to a person and/or the properties those words (and the corresponding pronouns) refer to.

They intuitively (perhaps instinctively) used secondary sex characteristics as a means of ascertaining whether the person was a man or a woman, and on the basis of that, they decided what pronoun to use.

And now you’re trying to fight that and claim he wasn’t comfortable with it.
But he was.

Who is "he" here?
You were talking about how people made assessments in the past (and the vast majority in the present to, but I do not need that). But suppose the person making the assessment was a man. I am not saying he was not comfortable. I am confortable assessing that an entity is a cat by looking at it. If it's a cat-looking terminator made by aliens from another planet, I will have made a mistaken assessment. But that wouldn't make me uncomfortable when making cat assessments.

And he had all the information that you have when deciding whether you are comfortable calling a person she or he in real life.

Indeed. And if he had had more information, he would have changed the assessment on the basis of that further information. As I would with the terminator cat.

And that is just bullshit and people fail at it all the time. ALL the time.
I don’t know what rock you live under, but in addition to having it happen to me repeatedly, even when I was wearing nail polish or earring, I also *do* it all the time. I can’t tell. Happens a lot.

"A lot" is a relative term. It happens a minuscule proportion of the times, which may be "a lot" in a population of billions. It is still a minuscule proportion. We almost always get it right, without realizing it. Errors are salient, but in nearly all cases, there is no error.

So your claim that people can effortlessly tell is demonstrably flawed.

It is not, as it is not a claim that this is always so (please look at the language of my post). But even if it were, your reasoning would remain improper for the reasons I explained earlier.

I expect you make the mistake and you’re just too sure of your own flawlessness to even know it.

But that's just you accusing me of believing I'm flawless, with no rational basis for your false accusation. However, even if you were correct about me out of sheer luck, your previous argument would remain improper precisely because of the reasons I pointed out. The errors in your reasoning are independent of any flaws I might have, no matter how big those flaws might be.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

And just to clarify a point in case it was needed: my arguments and claims do not even involve a claim that pronouns are about sex or not about gender (whatever "gender" might mean), and is compatible with some mental properties playing a role. That would require further analysis of the concepts involved, using counterfactual scenarios to probe how people who speak NW-English would be disposed to use words (e.g, what if you take the brain of a woman and put it in a male rest of the body, or use future tech to bring about a metamorphosis as in some fish species, etc.).

However, regardless of whether the relevant concepts of 'man' and 'woman' involve some mental properties, the point is that the mental properties involved in trans cases do not cut it, regardless of whether others - like lived experience as a male or female - might. For example,


Suppose a human - say, Alex - identifies as a man. Alex is 25, has a vagina, uterus, ovaries, etc., no penis, testicles, etc. Alex has a mind that experienced having a vagina all through Alex's life. Alex has never experienced having a penis. Alex also still experiences that. Alex has some male-like mental properties, e.g., Alex as a kid liked to played with trucks more than with dolls, if that is a male-like mental property (which may well be).

Well, in NW-English, Alex is a woman - this is an assessment based on observations of how people use the word 'woman' in NW-English.
In other words, I am saying that the statement 'Alex is a woman' in NW-English is true. For the reasons I explained, it is not an instance of misgendering, regardless of whether further male-like mental properties - like having a mind resulting from experiencing having a penis but not a vagina all through Alex's life - would have been enough to make Alex a man in NW-English.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

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.

No here is where your conclusion is flawed. They used how a person presented to be perfectly, completely comfortable in deciding on a pronoun.

And now you’re trying to fight that and claim he wasn’t comfortable with it.
But he was.

And he had all the information that you have when deciding whether you are comfortable calling a person she or he in real life.

And yet here is a whole thread of people losing their shit over a voluntary field on an anonymous message board to let people know what gender they wish to be called. And the shit-losers are trying to say, “no! I won’t! I can’t! Woe!”

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.

And that is just bullshit and people fail at it all the time. ALL the time.
I don’t know what rock you live under, but in addition to having it happen to me repeatedly, even when I was wearing nail polish or earring, I also *do* it all the time. I can’t tell. Happens a lot.

So your claim that people can effortlessly tell is demonstrably flawed.
I expect you make the mistake and you’re just too sure of your own flawlessness to even know it.

I just grew my hair out and colored it petrol. Yup. Petrol. I like the color.

I noticed something interesting about estrogen. I think that it made me more attuned to colors around me. I am not sure that I saw more color, but the colors mattered to me more. For the first time, I saw the color petrol, and I was like, "I have GOT to know what I am supposed to call that color! It's amazing!" Then I picked it up and whirled it around with hearts in my eyes.

<<--------dork.

What really shocks me is how often people misgender just in order to be jerks. I can get that I don't exactly look like I am trying to dress like Miss Denmark 2021, but I know other transgender people that really dress out every day and don't even step out the door without more than I make in a week on their faces alone. They get misgendered more often than I do, which is weird because I am not even really trying.

You know it's not an accident when someone calls out "SIR!" with the same intonation that they would say "SHITHEAD" toward a transgender person that has a very expensive hair color treatment, a weekly income's worth of make-up on their face, a clearly feminine OYSTER dress, and naturally grown out nails. What is amazing to me is that someone will come up to talk to that person for no necessary reason that I can perceive at the moment.

For my own part, I have had to improve my social perception just so that I can tell whether someone is just not able to tell I am trying for female or that person is trying to be a jerk. There is a certain pompousness that comes over someone when they are calling out a slur. They look down their noses as if they were examining a cockroach on the floor.

It's kind of useful, actually, because it gives me an idea of what kind of person I am dealing with. A person that just avoids pronouns until they are sure is the genuinely polite person because they are not sure whether I am fully transgender or non-binary, which is smart. The person that gives the correct pronoun wants me to perceive them as polite, but they might be trying to get something out of me. The person that misgenders by accident and then gets a "uh-oh" sort of look when they notice that I am not exactly a sure bet is also a polite person but a little slow. The person that obliviously and happily continues misgendering is proud of their own obliviousness, and I really don't need someone that self-absorbed in their own life's narrative in MY life: they are furniture. The one that tilts their head back just to better look down their nose is a highly unpleasant individual and is probably a transphobe chiefly because it's a convenient means of showing the world how unpleasant they are. The person that goes out of their way to ask me my pronouns has actually been slighted by the unpleasant individual and definitely has an axe to grind, and I am not signing up for it until I know the whole story from several different perspectives.

It makes me feel like a bit of a super-spy.

But transphobia's real.

 

[laughing dog]

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.

No here is where your conclusion is flawed. They used how a person presented to be perfectly, completely comfortable in deciding on a pronoun.

And now you’re trying to fight that and claim he wasn’t comfortable with it.
But he was.

And he had all the information that you have when deciding whether you are comfortable calling a person she or he in real life.

And yet here is a whole thread of people losing their shit over a voluntary field on an anonymous message board to let people know what gender they wish to be called. And the shit-losers are trying to say, “no! I won’t! I can’t! Woe!”

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.

And that is just bullshit and people fail at it all the time. ALL the time.
I don’t know what rock you live under, but in addition to having it happen to me repeatedly, even when I was wearing nail polish or earring, I also *do* it all the time. I can’t tell. Happens a lot.

So your claim that people can effortlessly tell is demonstrably flawed.
I expect you make the mistake and you’re just too sure of your own flawlessness to even know it.

No. Normal people can tell the sex of the person they are looking at and talking to, 99.9% of the time.

Is this a data-driven claim that has a link or is it simply a conjecture?

It is my lived experience.

You have no way to verify the accuracy of your perceptions, so it may or may not be your lived experience.

But, more importantly, an anecdote does not a general fact make.

 

[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.

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.

You are mistaken. If you have a sex, you have a gender. Gender and sex are common synonyms. It really is that simple.

You are claiming that gender and sex are synonyms, but the discussion about gender and sex throughout this entire thread has been predicated on the notion that they aren't the same thing.

Are you contending that gender and sex are the same thing?

If so, then what are you claiming is the solid definition of sex/gender? (i.e. Is someone male because they have male genetics and male dangly bits regardless of how they self-identify or Is someone male because of their self-identification as male regardless of whatever genetics and/or dangly bits they may or may not have?)

If not, then on what basis are you claiming that Emily Lake has a gender despite her claim otherwise? Why are you not extending her the same courtesy that has been repeatedly stated in this thread as essential to extend to everyone, namely respecting how people self identify?

Claiming something to be true does make it so.

Gender identity and sex are not the same thing. Gender (which has historically meant and still does in English) and sex do mean the same thing.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

I have already brought ample evidence forward that gender identity not commensurate with birth assignment is rooted in variances in the natural development of the human brain, and I have unmistakably proved that gender-affirmation is morally necessary.

I have depended chiefly upon both the published conclusions of empirical research performed by trusted scientific authorities, and I have also cited the official statements of one of the world's most respected pediatric agencies. I have carried out the duty of inquiry above and beyond the expectations of any reasonable human being.

I can bring forward that evidence again if anybody truly craves it, but I consider the matter to be settled.

Semantic pedantery over the subject is a form of trolling, and I regard it as shameful and despicable.

 

[TomC]

I have unmistakably proved that gender-affirmation is morally necessary.

You and I have so often disagreed that I feel a need to point out when you hit the nail on the head.
Recognizing that a competent, autonomous, adult human being might have a gender that differs from their sex is the moral choice. It's a new issue, historically speaking, but it's not difficult if given social cues. That's the reality, here and now. I don't much care about Afghanistan or the 20th century, what I care about is the people around me, here and now. Using cues to remain civil, rather than using semantics or biology to justify incivility, is the reality here in the 21st century western world. The reality is that civil conversation is far more important than parsing out technicalities of sex and gender, 95% of the time.
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

I am also 6'8" with a size 15 shoe.

Holy cow, dude, you're a giant!

 

[Emily Lake]

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?

You falling into the very small range of people who are genuinely ambiguous doesn't negate the fact that secondary and tertiary characteristics are incredibly good indicators of sex.

Extending your personal experience as if it is representative of the entire species is so far beyond fallacious, I don't even know where to begin. Using your own, personal, atypical experience in order to label my post as "unfactual" is absurd.

 

[Metaphor]

Recognizing that a competent, autonomous, adult human being might have a gender that differs from their sex is the moral choice.

Do you recognise, and ought society recognise, that Rachel Dolezal's internal race differs from her actual race?

 

[Emily Lake]

Is this a data-driven claim that has a link or is it simply a conjecture?

It's been studied repeatedly. Adults are nearly 100% accurate at sexing faces in adults. Children over about 6 are nearly, but not quite as good at sexing adults based on face alone. Children under 6 aren't very good at it, and are usually more driven by social cues than phenotypical ones - A preschooler will nearly always believe that if a person grows their hair long, they become a girl, and if they like trucks, they become a boy.

Both adults and children suck at classifying prepubescent children. Generally only a little bit better than chance, but it varies with the age of the face presented.

 

[TomC]

Recognizing that a competent, autonomous, adult human being might have a gender that differs from their sex is the moral choice.

Do you recognise, and ought society recognise, that Rachel Dolezal's internal race differs from her actual race?

I've replied to this several times. I'll repeat myself.

I think Ms. Dolezal was treated very badly. I consider it racist. I don't care about her genetics and I know little about her life or history. She was black enough to wind up as top dog of the Seattle branch of the NAACP(or something like that) and that's black enough for me.

Will you hear me this time, or will I have to repeat this again in a few months?
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

You are mistaken. If you have a sex, you have a gender. Gender and sex are common synonyms. It really is that simple.

If you're using the term gender as explicitly and only synonymous with sex, then I have a gender in that sense. If, however, you are using gender as a term defining an inner sense of oneself as masculine or feminine in a way that is divorced from the physically sexed body, I reject gender altogether and I do not have a gender.

 

[Emily Lake]

No, the problem with your reasoning remains the same: you are conflating the observations used to ascertain whether a person is a man or a woman (secondary sex characteristics) and/or to use a pronouns, with the properties that 'man' or 'woman' assign to a person and/or the properties those words (and the corresponding pronouns) refer to.

Perhaps a slightly different approach?

I can look at an object on my kitchen counter, and to me it looks like an apple. It's mostly red with a bit of yellowish smear, it's shaped like an apple, it has a stem, and it's in a place that I would expect an apple to be. With no further information that that, I would make the very reasonable assumption that the object is an apple.

But I'd be wrong. The object is a chunk of plastic that is made to look exactly like an apple. But I can't cut it or eat it or make a pie from it. It's not actually an apple, even though it convincingly looks like an apple. I could take poetic license and refer to it as an apple, which would be fine. But if I offered someone an apple and then handed them that chunk of plastic, I shouldn't be surprised if they're a bit miffed about it.

Alternatively...

This thing that looks like a cake...


This thing that looks like a steak...