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#281 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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#282 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Mounts Farm
Posts: 6,080
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I suppose I'll just have to take your word for it, as a skeptic.
![]() The aforementioned social norm causes problems, and we needn't actually say what the problems are (or provide any evidence thereof) so long as we convey a certain level of moral outrage when discussing the topic and maybe throw in a gratuitous reference to patriarchal dystopia. Totally not a weasel word, "problematic." ![]() |
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#283 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 7,676
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"Ideas are also weapons." - Subcomandante Marcos "We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live." - Lucy Parsons "Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!" - Mikhail Bakunin |
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#284 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 48,023
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Who claims that? Is it correct? And what does it even mean?
If you've ever actually parented a 3 year old, you will discover that they don't even really understand what gender is, and they've got a limited grasp on language as well. Whether they call themselves a boy or a girl is largely a function of what you told them, regardless of whatever kind of internal model of gender they might have working in their brains.
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Plus, of course, we tend to socially condition biological males to believe that they are male and biological females to believe that they are female. And in most cases, their anatomy correctly reflects that difference even before puberty, which children will discover and learn about as well. Now, it might be interesting to raise a bunch of children without ever telling them about sex differences in humans or what their own sex was, or letting them see anyone else naked to compare themselves with. And maybe they wouldn't conceptualize such differences until puberty hit. But you can't do such an experiment for obvious ethical reasons.
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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#285 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,972
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Jesus Goddamn Christ what do you want me to say?
I think it's wrong. Define "wrong" however will get you through the day. I don't think men and women should have expectations put on them based on their biological sex unless their biological is the actual determining factor in it. The fact that at some point in the last... 7 second that somehow became an controversial opinion I'm getting the "no true Skeptic" card played against me on is rather troubling. I said waaaaaaay back when this thread (and the thread before it) started that Transgenderism required us to put gender stereotypes back on the table and that called a strawman. No someone's doing it and me saying that's what they are doing is a strawman. |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#286 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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That's a side-effect of the feminism of old: once they were done with trying to make men and women equal, they moved on to trying to make them the same, either because they're confusing the terms or because they see the latter as a means to reach the former, which they believe hasn't been reached yet.
Not saying Joe's thinking like that, but that sort of odd logic has crept into the collective counsciousness. |
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#287 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 7,676
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender...e_of_formation
Personally I don't think it means anything, but I happen to be arguing with someone who asserts that gender identity is phenomenal.
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__________________
"Ideas are also weapons." - Subcomandante Marcos "We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live." - Lucy Parsons "Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!" - Mikhail Bakunin |
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#288 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Mounts Farm
Posts: 6,080
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I think there is a biological reason why men typically have more trouble presenting a baby smooth face to the world than women do.
As a consequentialist, I like to be able to point to some cognizable harm done whenever I say something is wrong. |
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"Well, a statement like that is all the better for proof, but go on, anyway." - Salvor Hardin |
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#289 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
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#290 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
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Okay before you go full Bob on me and start getting treated as such, I need to know where I'm losing you exactly because you're off somewhere beyond the event horizon of the formless at this point.
What in the bloody, blue, blazes does the difficulty in shaving have to do with anything? Yes men have to shave and women don't because men grow beards. How does this in anyway connect to "Men are expected to shave?" Men are expected to shave to be smooth faced and women aren't so men... shaving is... sexist because they wouldn't be equal any other way or something? Is that where you are trying to land on? |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#291 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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One post ago you said "gender", and now you've switched to "gender identity". Which one is it? Because the former, as I said, can be observed objectively. The latter is subjective and based on report. However, one's identification does not change objective fact -- in this case the gender.
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#292 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2012
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"Well, a statement like that is all the better for proof, but go on, anyway." - Salvor Hardin |
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#293 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
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#294 |
Self Employed
Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#295 |
Self Employed
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#296 |
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Location: Monkey
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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#297 |
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__________________
Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#298 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
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Well, there's the problem. Not long ago the two were essentially the same. Then it was a set of behaviours associated with sex. Now it's whatever the **** we want, which as you said is akin to the soul debate.
Me, I'd rather avoid the third definition and stick to either the first or second. In both cases, however, it makes how you identify completely irrelevant. |
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#299 |
Fiend God
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#300 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
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I think it's a little more complicated than that.
The problem is that over time, societies have evolved a lot of non-biological norms and expectations on top of this basic biological fact. I think that many of them probably started out in societies where group survival was much more closely tied to realistic assessment of sexual dimorphism. Even as civilization advanced and survival depended less and less on being a man and easily producing surplus food, or being a woman and trading other things for some of that surplus, the existing norms and expectations remained and continued to evolve into the rather baroque and apparently pointless conventions we have today. So you're not really having to remind people of the sexual dimorphism. You're having to remind them that we're dealing with tens of thousands of years of evolved tradition, stemming from this sexual dimorphism. And you're having to remind them that even though civilization has greatly narrowed the raw power gap between men and women, or even eliminated it altogether in some areas, the dimorphism still exists, and some version of the social norms and expectations that arise from it will probably always be with us. Joe's proposal to just abolish them probably won't work. And as long as we have competitive sports, gender dimorphism will mean gendered roles, and transgenders will still have a venue for their disphoria and a preferred mode of treatment. |
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#301 |
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Because I have to stop every other post and restate because it immediately gets lost in the weeds.
For the 50th billionth time (I should just save this so I can copy and paste it.) - I do not recognize a level of valid, meaningful, non-biological difference between the sexes (either as things that exist or things that we should be creating) that is required to make "identifying" as one sex or the other beyond the biological as meaningful in anyway. - When (g)you say or "accept" (which I could phrase that better, something in that ballpark) a statement like "I'm biologically X, but I identify as Y" (g)you are reinforcing unnecessary at best, dangerous at worst stereotypes placed on the genders. When (g)you let a man who wants to wear a dress present himself as a woman, you are, whether you like it or not, saying that wearing a dress is associated or expected or some version of the same, for women. - You can't have stereotypes, rules, expectations, etc that only work in the subversive. You can't champion subverting the rules without shoring the rules up. |
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Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate." |
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#302 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
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#303 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In a post-fact world
Posts: 91,292
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What do you consider "biological"? Hormones can have quite a bit of influence on behaviour, and everything humans do, in a way, stem from the biological. So where do you draw the line?
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#304 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
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Society as a whole, however, does. It probably will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The solution to helping transpeople live healthy and fulfilling lives as first-class citizens is not to simply declare that gender norms and expectations are stupid and wrong. That doesn't help transpeople, and it doesn't help the rest of us. We all have to get by in the society we have, not the society we wish to have or plan to have at a later date.
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"I want to be seen as a woman." "Then wear a dress." Is a perfectly cromulent exchange, in a society where women normally wear dresses. You're not so much trying to solve for transgenders, as you are trying to solve for JoeMorgue.
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#305 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Mounts Farm
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At the local pride parade (day before yesterday) I saw plenty of people happily subverting everyday gender norms. I don't have those photos yet, but here is a link to a random drag queen lineup from a while ago and a world away. This sort of willful and joyful subversion would be lost in the process of degenderfication proposed above, not to mention any number of fun & useful sexual cues.
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#306 |
The Grammar Tyrant
Join Date: Jul 2006
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#307 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#308 |
Muse
Join Date: Oct 2014
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The way I think of it is that there is a physical sex and a mental sex. Yes, I used the term "sex" for both. Deliberately.
Gender is your second definition: "a set of behaviours associated with sex." Dysphoria occurs when the (external) physical sex does not match up with the (internal) mental sex. We can argue all day about why this happens. In order to relieve their dysphoria, a person may express the gender that matches their mental sex. In many ways it's easier to manipulate external things than internal. So by acting and dressing like a woman they feel more at ease because it relives the tension between their internal image of their sex and their external. An analogy is painkillers. Morphine doesn't eliminate the cause of pain, but it numbs it so that you can function. For the purposes of relieving dysphoria, those items that are most distinctly associated with gender will be most effective. This changes over time and between cultures. I don't think the drive is to wear a dress or play with Barbies. It's to be seen and see themselves as female. Currently, that includes wearing a dress. In the future it could mean shaving the left side of your head. Or tattooing a symbol on your forehead. Of course, that's just the interpretation I have from reading and watching videos. |
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#309 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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#310 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 48,640
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If your goal is to be granted an exception to a rule, you have to first acknowledge and uphold the rule itself. This is different from the goal of abolishing the rule and getting rid of any possibility of exceptions. Our current understanding of gender disphoria seems to be that transgenders function best when there is both a rule and an exception made in their case.
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#311 |
Penultimate Amazing
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#312 |
The Grammar Tyrant
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 27,953
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Scotland might be an issue - isn't Rolfe in Scotland?
However, MtF trans aren't just readily accepted in Pasifika culture - they're a part of their culture and always have been. The girls just see them as girls and they use the girls' toilets. And let me tell you, 95% of the time, you do not need an ID card to spot the girls who still have the male bits. There may be a case where one of them has attacked a woman, but I've certainly not heard about it, and I've heard of lots of cases of a big Pasifika trans knocking sevens bells of **** out of blokes. |
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#313 |
Lackey
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But surely Joe you recognise that you are rather nonconformist in this regard? It's a fact that whether it is right or wrong our societies do compartmentalise certain behaviours, such as what we wear to one sex/gender. Therefore in the context of our actual society someone could consider themselves to be the gender that wears tights/pantyhose not the gender that doesn't. You can claim this is an arbitrary, non logical way of assigning gender, and I'd actually agree with you BUT it is how society actually is organised.
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#314 |
Lackey
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#315 |
Lackey
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#316 |
Lackey
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You've got that the wrong way around. To use an example. Women with visble facial hair are considered less feminine, less beautiful, less attractive in a culture such as the USA because visible facial hair is considered a "masculine" trait. Yet in reality both women (albeit generally to a lesser amount) and men "biologically" have facial hair. This means a biological trait is suppressed in the societally/culturally defined female gender but can be expressed in the male gender. It is these types of gender differences that some of us think should be irrelevant and should really be relegated to history. A woman shouldn't be judged as less "womanly" because she allows her facial hair to grow and be seen.
The issue this view has is the one Joe is expressing, which is wanting to be identified as or even just self identify as a particular gender is really saying you want to use these *arbitrary* social markers to identify yourself but these are simply cultural and societal norms not objective differences that exist outwith society. (We know these are not objective in the sense that they appear the same in all human societies, the classic example is the swap of pink for boys to pink for girls.) It does raise an interesting question and that is if there were not these socially created and reenforced differences between certain groups of humans what would wanting to be a particular gender actually mean? |
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#317 |
Philosopher
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I wouldn't say that emphasizing observable average sex differences in body hair counts as entirely arbitrary, at least not in those tribes where men are noticeably more hirsute than women. Same goes for any attempt to emphasize other sex differences which would exist even in something approaching a state of nature, e.g. push-up bras. There remain plenty of differences which are entirely arbitrary, however, such as makeup, hair length, clothing color palettes, neckties, etc.
Like Joe, I believe we should avoid being heavy-handed in our enforcement of the above-mentioned gender norms, but unlike him, I don't think most of them are harmful enough to make total degenderfication a worthwhile social project. I try to argue these things on a case-by-case basis, weighing the relevant benefits and harms. I addressed this question (somewhat) in a previous instance of this thread. |
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#318 |
Orthogonal Vector
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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#319 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 7,676
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"Ideas are also weapons." - Subcomandante Marcos "We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live." - Lucy Parsons "Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!" - Mikhail Bakunin |
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#320 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 48,023
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Facial hair isn't irrelevant, and will probably never be irrelevant.
Excess facial hair on women is one of the signs of polycystic ovary syndrome. Another symptom is lowered fertility. So facial hair is negatively associated with fertility. That makes facial hair unattractive on women. This isn't fair, but it's not arbitrary, it has a biological basis, and you're never going to get rid of it simply by wishing it away. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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