Who determines the number of genders- and how?

[tyr_13]

The word for woman is woman. It doesn't need any qualifiers to be entirely clear.

In some contexts, yes it does. This is especially true in discussions like this one, where comparing the groups comes up.

Also, I still can't find a citation for that '90% desist', and the best citations so far in this thread have claimed there isn't enough good data on that specific claim. (I have a strong suspicion that any such study is going to be drastically effected by both definition scope and reporting mechanisms, and thus even well conducted studies might come up with drastically different numbers there.)

 

[sadhatter]

Very supportive of trans people. Also I'm very supportive of tattoos. That being said.

People are treating this as less life changing than a tattoo. I'd expect almost no one to agree that a pre puberty child has enough sense to decide if they should have a tattoo, for obvious reasons. But a much more life changing procedure and suddenly is obviously the child being wise enough and the parents making a smart decision.

I feel the same way I did about the "cool" mom's in high school that went with their kids to the shady parlor in the city and got them inked. And im sure a legion of folks with evanescence and sum 41 tattoos would agree that waiting till they had more sense would have been a good idea.

 

[shuttlt]

In some contexts, yes it does. This is especially true in discussions like this one, where comparing the groups comes up.

Also, I still can't find a citation for that '90% desist', and the best citations so far in this thread have claimed there isn't enough good data on that specific claim. (I have a strong suspicion that any such study is going to be drastically effected by both definition scope and reporting mechanisms, and thus even well conducted studies might come up with drastically different numbers there.)

Found this supporting 80%:
https://www.transgendertrend.com/children-change-minds/
Though I can see reason to argue the true number is maybe a little lower if I understand the study correctly.

 

[tyr_13]

Found this supporting 80%:
https://www.transgendertrend.com/children-change-minds/
Though I can see reason to argue the true number is maybe a little lower if I understand the study correctly.

Thanks. I already had that one saved.

It's a contentious topic inside the trans community as well, with some taking absurd positions such as transitioning is always stuck with and there is no confusions, but that's usually roundly rejected (just less than the 'no such thing as trans' extreme). Even so, I'd never seen 90% claimed even from those arguing against all childhood medical treatments for it (apart from the 'no such thing' people again, but by definition they're not in the community). In that way, it's much as the ADHD issue in that it really doesn't matter if it's being over-diagnosed to if it's a real condition.

Back on the actual topic that has drifted a bit, I'll just throw in that many genders is just as 'right' as two or none. Perhaps one day that stuff will matter less, but right now the way we order society still privileges and values based on that, including for a great many things that it doesn't need to if the justification is supposed to be sexual dimorphism. Hopefully greater recognition of more than two genders leads to less arbitrary limitations. The simple answer to the question is, 'Society, through very complicated interactions.'

 

[shuttlt]

Back on the actual topic that has drifted a bit, I'll just throw in that many genders is just as 'right' as two or none. Perhaps one day that stuff will matter less, but right now the way we order society still privileges and values based on that, including for a great many things that it doesn't need to if the justification is supposed to be sexual dimorphism. Hopefully greater recognition of more than two genders leads to less arbitrary limitations. The simple answer to the question is, 'Society, through very complicated interactions.'

I'm with Noel Plum on this... though I can't remember the exact quote. Binary gender covers an awful lot of people and ground. It's not like "man" means one narrow and restricted thing, or woman does. Those two categories cover almost everybody. The whole 30, 40, 50 gender thing is like categorising edibles as food, drink and 50 different types of yogurt.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I don't follow? Sex physically exists. Gender is an identification, which doesn't have a real existence, per se. It's an abstract description.

Exactly it needs to give your current reproductive status on your drivers license. If you are some sterile freak you need to be easily identified as such. It is the only way to be biologically accurate after all. So women stop being women at menopause, men stop being men if they get a vasectomy and so on.

Other wise you get into weird situations where "well you look kind of like a man so we will class you as a man" no you must be fully functional to count as your biologically indicated sex. Everyone else gets lumped into sexless sterile freak.

 

[Cavemonster]

I apologize if I missed something in this thread, but the vast majority of the time I see people complain about "Oh my gosh, why 39 genders" I see far more alarm at the number and not much thoughtful analysis of what is actually in such a list and how it might be used.

Here's one such list:

http://abcnews.go.com/News/heres-a-...ions-for-facebook-users/blogEntry?id=22504704

You'll notice that the vast majority of them aren't really distinct genders but different ways of talking about essentially a much smaller set of things. For instance, the list includes Cis, Cisgender, Cis Male, Cis Man, Cisgender Man, and Cisgender Male. That's six labels, but we're not by any stretch talking about six "genders".

Lists on Tinder or any other "Omigosh why so many genders!" are pretty much the same.

These labels represent different ways people may chose to talk about their gender identity. So back to the original question, who choses how many of these labels exist? In the case above, Facebook chooses, just like any other company chooses the option for their users.

 

[Venom]

I prefer beef. Bovine flesh. Or bacon.

What about mutton

 

[pharphis]

I'm with Noel Plum on this... though I can't remember the exact quote. Binary gender covers an awful lot of people and ground. It's not like "man" means one narrow and restricted thing, or woman does. Those two categories cover almost everybody. The whole 30, 40, 50 gender thing is like categorising edibles as food, drink and 50 different types of yogurt.

Right. As someone else said earlier, the logical end-point if we want to hyper-categorize is to give each person their own gender (hint: it's their name or SSN or something like that).

When 2 labels accurately describe 99% of the population, then it's a pretty good classification system. We're talking about billions of people, after all.

Biological models in general have a grey area (species is the most common example).

 

[pharphis]

I don't know why I'm perennially surprised by the sheer number of right-on lefty dudebros, as well as straight-up right-wing misogynists, who pile into these discussions mansplaining to women what it is to be a woman, and sporting their woke credentials by telling women they have to budge up and make room for men in dresses because they sure as hell won't make a safe space in men's designated accommodation for them. Men support other men in their desire to oppress women. There's actually nothing surprising about this at all.

"right-wing misogynists" demand that transfolk have to be accommodated in female spaces? That's news to me.

Also I can't help but get a very negative vibe from your post. Men support other men in their desire to oppress women? What planet are you on?

You seem to be trying to claim a complex issue as a misogynistic attack on your sex.



In general, I don't like how this topic of shared washrooms etc. is framed as "creepy men will predate on women" as if
1) the coreverse isn't also true
2) that this is a considerable risk in general or even in particular to this group of people

It just comes off as misandric, NOT misogynistic.

 

[Belz...]

When 2 labels accurately describe 99% of the population, then it's a pretty good classification system. .

Over 99%, in fact. And the thing is, what they don't describe aren't supplementary genders but genetic 'defects' that make identification difficult. If you mash together a Toyota and a Peugeot, it doesn't make it a new brand.

 

[JoeMorgue]

In general, I don't like how this topic of shared washrooms etc. is framed as "creepy men will predate on women" as if
1) the coreverse isn't also true
2) that this is a considerable risk in general or even in particular to this group of people

Oh come on it's perfectly logical.

1. A straight man not wanting to shower, change, use bathroom with a gay man is obviously homophobic.
2. A straight man not wanting to shower, change, use bathroom with a trans man is obviously transphobic.
3. A straight woman not wanting to shower, change, use bathroom with a straight man is perfectly okay.

 

[tyr_13]

I'm with Noel Plum on this... though I can't remember the exact quote. Binary gender covers an awful lot of people and ground. It's not like "man" means one narrow and restricted thing, or woman does. Those two categories cover almost everybody. The whole 30, 40, 50 gender thing is like categorising edibles as food, drink and 50 different types of yogurt.

I kind of agree, but it seems like a lot of this is talking past each other. Different situations demand different levels of specificity. In that way, Rolfe is right that a woman is a woman. Trans woman, cis woman, MTF, male to female...they are all women. They're all the same gender. (As Cavemonster rightfully points out, basically ever list of 'OMG look at all these genders!' are lists of terms describing gender and padded with things that are not gender.)

However, in some situations that information is useful. Dating sites have good reason to have many choices for 'gender' even though they aren't all actually different genders. Doctors generally need to know sex, not gender. Discussions where large parts of society don't believe trans people are the gender they are...then the vocabulary is useful. (Also, it isn't really here nor there if it works 90+ or even 99% of the time. Having words to describe when it doesn't work isn't invalidated by times when it does.)

The yogurt thing is probably unintentionally accurate (I don't know how that person was using it). Is it a food or drink? Well, to know that you would actually have to know what kind of yogurt you're talking about. When you have people making laws that you can't put yogurt in public coolers for drinks, nor for food, then it's not just useful, but essential to have language for it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I kind of agree, but it seems like a lot of this is talking past each other.

The problem when you "talk past" someone in certain situations that gets you branded a hateful cislord bigot.

I've literally had people; otherwise nice smart reasonable people, say that "misgendering someone" is pretty much on the same level as a slur and my entire Facebook feed has been awash in the last week with the report that not using a person's preferred pronoun is a leading cause of suicide.

So yeah... can't win, can't lose, can't quit the game.

 

[tyr_13]

The problem when you "talk past" someone in certain situations that gets you branded a hateful cislord bigot.

I've literally had people; otherwise nice smart reasonable people, say that "misgendering someone" is pretty much on the same level as a slur and my entire Facebook feed has been awash in the last week with the report that not using a person's preferred pronoun is a leading cause of suicide.

So yeah... can't win, can't lose, can't quit the game.

It's that way all around. What you say happens, almost always from some over zealous ally making it more about their virtue than the groups they're supporting. It also happens that someone mistakenly concludes malice or excessive negligence when a simple slip of the tongue or other misunderstanding is the issue. It also happens that someone actually is a hateful bigot hides behind those cases. Or a correction or criticism of an argument makes something believe they're being called a bigot, or that the criticism was for something it entirely was not (such as 'not wanting the dick').

I'm paraphrasing but it reminds me of the time I was complaining about being called racist because I objected to direct monetary reparations for slavery, and some rando piped up with something along the lines of, 'yeah, and they called be a racist for calling my sister's boyfriend a (n-word)'. (I can't actually remember rando's transgression, but it was stupidly racist.)

Guess we'll have to take such accusations on their own merits the hard way.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well unfortunately this is 2018 on the internet and we can't just pretend that the entire goal isn't to just lump anyone who disagrees with you into some "evil" category you can then use to dismiss them.

"Well we'll just have to discuss this without rampant tribalism dictating every aspects of the discussion" is like saying "Well discuss it without the tide coming it." Okay it's a nice idea but it's pointless because it ain't gonna happen.

 

[Thermal]

Exactly it needs to give your current reproductive status on your drivers license. If you are some sterile freak you need to be easily identified as such. It is the only way to be biologically accurate after all. So women stop being women at menopause, men stop being men if they get a vasectomy and so on.

Other wise you get into weird situations where "well you look kind of like a man so we will class you as a man" no you must be fully functional to count as your biologically indicated sex. Everyone else gets lumped into sexless sterile freak.

*Twilight Zone theme plays in the background*

Ok, I give up. Who said anything about reproductive status?

 

[kellyb]

It's that way all around. What you say happens, almost always from some over zealous ally making it more about their virtue than the groups they're supporting.

Indeed. I honestly think this behavior can only be corrected by fellow allies. It's a problem for and of the ally community, within the ally community, and so the onus is also on us to fix it, even if we as individuals didn't cause the problem.

 

[kellyb]

Well unfortunately this is 2018 on the internet and we can't just pretend that the entire goal isn't to just lump anyone who disagrees with you into some "evil" category you can then use to dismiss them.

Who just did that? Tyr just said it was people:

making it more about their virtue than the groups they're supporting

That's the opposite of being in or feigning denial about the nature of the beast.

 

[Rolfe]

Interesting thread on twitter here.

https://twitter.com/docamitay/status/976098794340151297