Who determines the number of genders- and how?

kellyb said:
It's not really the edge cases that bother me - it's really stuff like women's sports, women's health, etc that legitimately does seem to be being "encroached upon" in destructive ways which has been flying under the radar to some extent, because most feminists of all orientations really, truly don't want to be bigots.
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Outside of sports where the advantages to transwomen vs ciswomen is debatable how is being inclusive hurting women's health and what ever is in the ect?

How is women's health being encroached upon?
 
JoeMorgue said:
If the whole gender identify thing was being presented as some sort of... transitional phase, a thing for people do while waiting on gender roles to go away you might have a point but that's certainly not what we have.

Nothing in any version of the gender identify movement has it ever been presented in any context as "temporary."
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How did I claim being gender queer, gender fluid, or gender non conforming are transitional? Some people do change their identities and some do not. Are we back to bisexuals not existing because it has to be some kind of transitional phase, or is presented as a transitional phase sometimes?

I am really not sure what you are getting at here.
 
ponderingturtle said:
No. Trans people really do understand what their bodies are. But they also know what they feel their bodies should be. Their mental idea of this is my body does not match their physical one. This is not something that in general is treated with disdain when someone tries to get their body to fit their body image. Like those "unnecessary" breast reconstruction after mastectomy for women? Why bother with those fake unnatural breasts? Who are they trying to fool? Why do women who have cancer deserve tits but women who did not naturally grow them do not?
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That's what I mean. You feel like something that you physically are not. A small breasted woman does not feel she is a large breasted woman trapped in the wrong body, she is making cosmetic changes like grooming. A trans is not just dolling up their appearance.
 
Thermal said:
I'm not trying to be obtuse. Thinking you are a woman when you are physically a male is some sort of crossed wire. Yes, a dolphin is being hyperbolic, but all this talk of gender inclusivity seems to gloss over that. That's why I see the gender distinction as often really meaning sex; we don't have any evidence of being trapped in wrong bodies. Its a hardwiring problem regarding self identification.
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Like being gay?
 
Thermal said:
That's what I mean. You feel like something that you physically are not. A small breasted woman does not feel she is a large breasted woman trapped in the wrong body, she is making cosmetic changes like grooming. A trans is not just dolling up their appearance.
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And a woman after a mastectomy has no breasts, why would she want to fool anyone with these fake ones? Get it certainly seems to be very important to many women to have breasts.

It is not because it has many connected issues involving self image, identity and society.
 
Thermal said:
Back away slowly?
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Yeah I flubbed it reversed what I was trying to say.

Hopefully everyone got what I mean.

kellyb said:
It's not really the edge cases that bother me - it's really stuff like women's sports, women's health, etc that legitimately does seem to be being "encroached upon" in destructive ways which has been flying under the radar to some extent, because most feminists of all orientations really, truly don't want to be bigots.
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And to me this is the current problem. Progressives are often so enamored with the idea of tolerance and so scared of not living up to some perfect ideal of tolerance that they embrace it at every chance without thinking if it makes any sense. Progressives have got, got to start looking a social problems through some lens other than "Find the victim and agree with whatever they are saying."

Just because a group is legitimately being marginalized, their preferred way to fix might not always be the best way to do it.

If our goal is to get rid of unnecessary imposed gender roles enshrining some special subcategory of people who get to subvert those roles is counter productive in the long run, outweighing the temporary catharsis of a short term fix for the problem only in this limited context.
 
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Thermal said:
I'm not trying to be obtuse. Thinking you are a woman when you are physically a male is some sort of crossed wire. Yes, a dolphin is being hyperbolic, but all this talk of gender inclusivity seems to gloss over that. That's why I see the gender distinction as often really meaning sex; we don't have any evidence of being trapped in wrong bodies. Its a hardwiring problem regarding self identification.
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I guess I think the gender wires are easily crossed because gender roles and gender specific norms are somewhat fluid in our species, because we're very adaptable like that. Like, a vast majority of what it's supposed to "mean" to "be" a man or a woman (beyond genitalia) is made-up nonsense.
 
JoeMorgue said:
And to me this is the current problem. Progressives are often so enamored with the idea of tolerance and so scared of not living up to some perfect ideal of tolerance that they embrace it at every chance without thinking if it makes any sense
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Not only that, but in order to show everyone how moral they are, they lash out at anyone who doesn't meet that ideal, and discussing these issues rationally becomes impossible.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Like being gay?
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Yes. I think that's a hardwiring problem too. Doesn't make it bad or anything, and God knows I have them too. We are not perfect critters.

ponderingturtle said:
And a woman after a mastectomy has no breasts, why would she want to fool anyone with these fake ones? Get it certainly seems to be very important to many women to have breasts.

It is not because it has many connected issues involving self image, identity and society.
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A woman getting implants, whether for cosmetic or surgical reasons, does not feel like she has the entirely wrong genetic makeup, any more than someone getting a haircut feels like they are a shorthair trapped in a longhair head.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Outside of sports where the advantages to transwomen vs ciswomen is debatable how is being inclusive hurting women's health and what ever is in the ect?

How is women's health being encroached upon?
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Stuff like this:
https://www.thenation.com/article/who-has-abortions/


When the actress and feminist advocate Martha Plimpton organized an abortion-fund benefit lightheartedly named “Night of a Thousand Vaginas,” some activists were outraged, because some trans men don’t like that word (“birth canal” or “front hole” are favored alternatives to the V-word). Trans men should refer to their genitalia however they like, but it’s hard not to feel that there’s something seriously awry when women, who only got to call their genitals by the proper term in public a decade or so ago, are supposed to stop naming them in order to avoid offense.
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kellyb said:
I guess I think the gender wires are easily crossed because gender roles and gender specific norms are somewhat fluid in our species, because we're very adaptable like that. Like, a vast majority of what it's supposed to "mean" to "be" a man or a woman (beyond genitalia) is made-up nonsense.
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That's true. The role of what a man or woman does is societally defined and changes with the society. A transgender person normally isn't just exhibiting the behavior of the opposite sex, though. Its more of the wrong body thing.
 
JoeMorgue said:
And to me this is the current problem. Progressives are often so enamored with the idea of tolerance and so scared of not living up to some perfect ideal of tolerance that they embrace it at every chance without thinking if it makes any sense. Progressives have got, got to start looking a social problems through some lens other than "Find the victim and agree with whatever they are saying."

Just because a group is legitimately being marginalized, their preferred way to fix might not always be the best way to do it.

If our goal is to get rid of unnecessary imposed gender roles enshrining some special subcategory of people who get to subvert those roles is counter productive in the long run, outweighing the temporary catharsis of a short term fix for the problem only in this limited context.
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Agreed.
 
Thermal said:
A transgender person normally isn't just exhibiting the behavior of the opposite sex, though. Its more of the wrong body thing.
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I think there's a lot of variation there. I think the category "transwomen" is akin to the saying about autism: if you've met one person with autism, you've met...exactly one person with autism. lol
 
Belz... said:
What in the blue hell are you talking about? Children are not all females, and neither are foetuses at any point of their development. Children are already differentiated, and foetuses start halfway before a certain point.
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Well, reams of genetic scientists disagree with you. Perhaps your beef is with them.

I didn't say anything about "handed". How are you missing my point so utterly? The point is that if you want to refer to right-handed people specifically, we have a term for that even though most people are right-handed. The English language could very easily have not had any term for right-handed people but one for left-handed people, but having one for both is useful when you want to know which hand you favour. This isn't rocket science.
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But we already have a term for people who are born male . . . it's MALE. It's the same term we use for people who have transitioned to male. If they are on their journey they can call themselves transmales if they so choose.
 
Thermal said:
Yes. I think that's a hardwiring problem too. Doesn't make it bad or anything, and God knows I have them too. We are not perfect critters.



A woman getting implants, whether for cosmetic or surgical reasons, does not feel like she has the entirely wrong genetic makeup, any more than someone getting a haircut feels like they are a shorthair trapped in a longhair head.
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But it's a spectrum so how do you know they aren't just on the low end. "I'm female but not female enough withhout bigger breasts!"
 
qayak said:
Well, reams of genetic scientists disagree with you. Perhaps your beef is with them.
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Okay where exactly do you think this is gonna go?

Yes technically all mammals (maybe I'll vertebrates I don't remember) start off as female early in embryonic development.

AND?

How does that make adult biological sex any different in any context?

What possible part of the actual discussion that we are having do you think this little "Well ackschually..." factoid changes?
 
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Thermal said:
That's what I mean. You feel like something that you physically are not.
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If you have never been the other thing how do you know that's what you feel like? How do you even know that what you feel isn't completely normal for what you are because you have nothing else to compare it to?
 
qayak said:
Well, reams of genetic scientists disagree with you. Perhaps your beef is with them.
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I don't believe you.

But we already have a term for people who are born male . . . it's MALE. It's the same term we use for people who have transitioned to male.
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Isn't the latter "trans-male"?

And again, you're missing the point, which seems to indicate that you're doing it deliberately.
 
qayak said:
If you have never been the other thing how do you know that's what you feel like?
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Because not everything is a matter of internal personal identity.

Some thing have external defining characteristics.

Like the saying goes... How many legs does a dog have if you call its tail a leg?

Answer. 4. Still 4. Because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it so.

Progressives have got to accept this. What someone "identifies" as is not the end all, be all of their person.
 
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qayak said:
But we already have a term for people who are born male . . . it's MALE. It's the same term we use for people who have transitioned to male. If they are on their journey they can call themselves transmales if they so choose.
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"Cismen" refers to men who feel no discomfort with their presumptive birth sex, not to "people who are born male". A transwoman is born male, but is obviously not a cisman.

There's lots of silly language policing surrounding this debate, but cisgendered seems like a perfectly useful word to me when it's necessary to contrast those who are transgendered with those who are not, and I don't honestly see what the fuss is about. Or maybe I do.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay where exactly do you think this is gonna go?

Yes technically all mammals (maybe I'll vertebrates I don't remember) start off as female early in embryonic development.

AND?

How does that make adult biological sex any different in any context?

What possible part of the actual discussion that we are having do you think this little "Well ackschually..." factoid changes?
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You need to read, Joe. It isn't about sex, it's about language modifiers. The term "female" makes it sound like they are a subset of male when the opposite is true. The error was caused because of societal views on women being inferior.

Trans on the other hand is accurate because it describes gender that spans the gap between female and male.
 
qayak said:
You need to read, Joe. It isn't about sex, it's about language modifiers. The term "female" makes it sound like they are a subset of male when the opposite is true. The error was caused because of societal views on women being inferior.
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What?

Jesus Christ I thought the "Womyn" argument died years ago.

I have literally never once consider "female" as a subset of "male" because the wording is phrased.

This is gonna shock some people but... not all of us just comb for language for things to be annoyed about.

And I fail to see how adding yet another modifier to it fixes anything.
 
Thermal said:
Yes. I think that's a hardwiring problem too. Doesn't make it bad or anything, and God knows I have them too. We are not perfect critters.
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But does it mean gays don't really exist or what?


A woman getting implants, whether for cosmetic or surgical reasons, does not feel like she has the entirely wrong genetic makeup
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But she certainly had body dysphoria about not having the breasts she wanted. When is this acceptable?
 
JoeMorgue said:
Progressives have got to accept this. What someone "identifies" as is not the end all, be all of their person.
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That's the thing. They've redefined "gender" to be "whatever you feel like". That has never been the definition of that word, but they clearly believe, as ponderingturtle and luchog do, that if you don't define it that way, and therefore you conclude that trans-people are objectively wrong about their actual gender, then you're in favour of dehumanising them and driving them to suicide.

It makes no sense to you or I, but that's how they see it: if you don't buy the whole package, you're a bigot and an evil monster. That's why they do buy the package, and why they are so aggressive towards those who don't. It's pure moral posturing.
 
qayak said:
You need to read, Joe. It isn't about sex, it's about language modifiers. The term "female" makes it sound like they are a subset of male when the opposite is true.
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Still waiting for that evidence.

The error was caused because of societal views on women being inferior.
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No. It's because "man" was used to describe all humans as well as the male subset. There was nothing evil or oppressive about it. Besides, you're limiting yourself to a single language.
 
kellyb said:
Stuff like this:
https://www.thenation.com/article/who-has-abortions/
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I don't see your point? The number of trans people who are truly bothered by proper clinical names is minimal. There is a problem of tying womanhood to bodily organs sure, but that isn't even what this is about as it is very specifically about abortion and reproduction, and so vagina is a much more inclusive term than woman.
 
Thermal said:
That's true. The role of what a man or woman does is societally defined and changes with the society. A transgender person normally isn't just exhibiting the behavior of the opposite sex, though. Its more of the wrong body thing.
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Do you have any actual stats to back that up?
 
ponderingturtle said:
But she certainly had body dysphoria about not having the breasts she wanted. When is this acceptable?
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It's acceptable any time a person wants to do it.
Does everyone else have to then acknowledge that they are in fact real breasts though?
 
Female comes from the Latin fēmellae, and male is from Latin masculus, I'm pretty sure.
 
ponderingturtle said:
And if I make a point at calling out her fake tits at every chance that is cool too right?
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See what I mean?

Nowhere has anyone suggested that we should seek out trans women in the streets, point and them and scream at the top of our lungs that they are not objectively real women, just like I don't go around looking for Christians on the street to point at their crucifix pendants and shout about how wrong they are. Nobody is suggesting anything of the sort. There's a huge gulf between stating in a conversation about the issue that X is objectively incorrect, and going around being a jerk to people for no discernable reason.

But ponderingturtle does not make the distinction. If you disagree with the dogma he accepts, then you must be an evil person who would do things like that because that's the package he accepted: that in order to be a good, moral person you have to accept the package, and bad people do those sorts of things. It's insane, but that's the mindset.
 
Pterodactyl said:
Does everyone else have to then acknowledge that they are in fact real breasts though?
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And that is the difference.

At some point being accepted as a man who wants to be a woman wasn't enough. We know have to pretend the very idea that you want to be... changes reality.

And again the irony and tragedy of this is none of this makes a functional difference.

Man: "I would rather be a woman."
Me: "Gotcha. Fully understand and support you."
Man: "I don't want my biological sex to impose unwarranted roles on my life and place in society."
Me: "Completely agree with you 100%."
Man: "And I need you to actually think of me and identify me in your own head as a woman."
Me: "Wait what? I don't understand what you are..."
Progressives: "Transphobe! Bigot! Cisgender Scum!"

This isn't argument about any difference in any objective behavior or action or anything you actually do. It's trying to demonize people for not pretending they conceptualize something in a way you do even if it makes no difference.

All so people can feel they are winning the "Lookit at me being more progressive and accepting than you" game.
 
ponderingturtle said:
But does it mean gays don't really exist or what?
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Wut?

But she certainly had body dysphoria about not having the breasts she wanted. When is this acceptable?
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Anytime. Some people modify themselves to look like alligators. But they don't think they are alligators. Many transgender think they are the opposite sex, not playing at it. Big difference.
 
JoeMorgue said:
This isn't argument about any difference in any objective behavior or action or anything you actually do. It's trying to demonize people for not pretending they conceptualize something in a way you do even if it makes no difference.
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It's a bit related to the idea of the post-fact world, one where no one, and especially not children, are ever told they're wrong or that they've failed. At some point they believe that what they feel defines reality.
 
tyr_13 said:
Cis woman is a perfectly valid term, no matter how trans-excluding feminists want to twist the language in order to use old tactics of being the victimized, marginalized group against a group that they are currently victimizing and marginalizing.

I do in fact use terms for ethnic groups that many members claim they consider grossly offensive; black and African American. Most however, don't. This is the OVERWHELMING case with cis woman as well.

This is a basic fact that every TERF and other trans-excluding 'woman's' group fails to integrate; you do not own womanhood. You do not speak for womanhood. It is not a weapon you can swing against the other. This fear isn't of losing 'what they've worked for', it's for losing control and power. It's the sad hanging on to power that was fought for at first for noble goals, but power does what power does. 'Erase your identity' only works if one believes the markedly unfeminist idea that what is between your legs defines you as a person. What are you afraid of losing? From you last article, it looks like you want to reject women from being given shelter from violence because they're trans women, even though trans women are at greater risk of violence than cis women. How very kind of you.

Be grossly offended. Being offended doesn't make you right. I'll continue to offend you just like I continue to grossly offend radical Christians by denying a belief in any god, just like I'll grossly offend Trump supporters by opposing his harms, just like I'll grossly offend anti-vaxers with scientific facts.
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Who gets to speak for women then?

You imply it is those that think like yourself, by what metric did you come to this decision?

And as a male, how am I to decide on a subject my privilege makes me unable to understand when I have two or more representatives from a group that should, telling me diametrically opposed things?

It seems to me we are entering the point in history where identity politics as they are being applied are showing to have severe logical problems. People attempt to hide behind a group banner and claim ownership of said group, rather than work toward any kind of logical conclusion.

You want to have enough social control to redefine major premises based on feelings? Well this is the consequence, their feelings and yours are now what matters, meaning instead of working on actual solutions to these issues, we get to hear terfs argue with people who identify as trans vampire wolves about whos feelings are the most important.

**** this, those of us in the middle that want safety and fairness for everyone based on logic and reason need to get loud. I'm tired of hearing two egotistical victims scream extremist positions that neither will budge from. And im tired of people accepting these positions because they believe their income race or their junk determines what they can comment on.
 
Well, it looks like this link is needed again.

The science tells us that it is not just 'in their heads'. There are multiple body systems telling them this. When your body systems are telling you you're a woman, what are you supposed to be? That makes you a woman.

If you get your breasts replaced, they're your breasts. People should treat them and refer to them as your breasts. That they're 'fake' means you can treat them differently, refer to them differently, legislate them differently because... ?

And that's what's happening with trans people now. Basing our terminology on some ideal where silly sex roles have been abolished is nonsense when we are so very far from that. Maybe in the future that would work, but right now when there is so much bigotry and mistreatment directed at them it's as silly as pretending it's the fault of black advocacy groups that racism still exists.
 
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