Acceptance of Gender Diversity

[ponderingturtle]

They rarely ever cried as babies and are in the top percentile in abstract reasoning skills.

Gender *is* a code of behaviour assigned to us based on sex. You can spot a third gender whenever some set of people is essentially exempted from the codes of behaviour governing masculinity and femininity.

Here you go here are a selection of other genders from around the world. Click on the map to see the variety of ways these have been expressed.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/

 

[cullennz]

And how did this get to trans women in locker rooms when it started about if non binary people exist?

Was thinking the same thing

Fixation of the few I think

 

[Strawberry]

I suspect that what you mean by this is that people who have transitioned from male to female retain enough sexual characteristics of males to count as male, in your understanding. Hard to say, though, since "man" is a social role in addition to a biological category. May I safely assume you're focusing on sex (biological features) rather than gender (social expectations and presentations)?

Yes, I said that right at the start - there are two sexes and no genders because sex is a biological reality and gender is just made up. And as we can see clearly much of the ideology surrounding gender is blatantly misogynistic, being merely a tool to override any sex based protections for women.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Here you go here are a selection of other genders from around the world. Click on the map to see the variety of ways these have been expressed.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/

My perspective might be too Eurocentric or something, but most of these appear to be 'men who take on feminine roles' and vice versa. So these 'other' genders still seem to exist on the masculine-feminine spectrum, rather than adding an extra dimension to 'genderedness'.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Yes, I said that right at the start - there are two sexes and no genders because sex is a biological reality and gender is just made up. And as we can see clearly much of the ideology surrounding gender is blatantly misogynistic, being merely a tool to override any sex based protections for women.

Well three sexes, you have to lump all the freaks who can never fill a reproductive roll into some grouping. Like post menopausal women have stopped being women by hard biological definitions. Otherwise intersex conditions mess up the nice organized system.

 

[ponderingturtle]

My perspective might be too Eurocentric or something, but most of these appear to be 'men who take on feminine roles' and vice versa. So these 'other' genders still seem to exist on the masculine-feminine spectrum, rather than adding an extra dimension to 'genderedness'.

Why does making gender a vector instead of a spectrum the only way that could make a third gender valid?

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Why does making gender a vector instead of a spectrum the only way that could make a third gender valid?

It isn't. It's just that when I hear 'third gender', I think of something that isn't masculine or feminine, rather than something that is a bit of both.
But it appears to me 'third gender' is just a strictly codified and culturally accepted way to escape from reductive gender roles for people who do not occupy the extremes of the masculinity-femininity spectrum. But still every bit as governed by rules and convention as the traditional man and woman roles.
I'm all for accepting all the ways in which people don't conform to gender roles, and accepting that gender is a spectrum, but I'm not sure that codifying separate genders with accompanying gender roles for every possible deviation is something we need in an open and pluriform society.

 

[cullennz]

Yes, I said that right at the start - there are two sexes and no genders because sex is a biological reality and gender is just made up. And as we can see clearly much of the ideology surrounding gender is blatantly misogynistic, being merely a tool to override any sex based protections for women.

Lol

WTF?

So Trans men are women being misogynistic?

 

[theprestige]

Why does making gender a vector instead of a spectrum the only way that could make a third gender valid?

Stipulate a complementary arrangement of binary pairs. But each of the two binary options has a wide range of expressions. Practically, this forms a continuum. Most people fall into a complementary range towards one end or the other. Some people have a very extreme expression, very close to one end or the other. Some people have a very mild or ambiguous expression, closer to the middle, but also falling outside the ideal complementary range for pairing.

That's a very different from a complementary arrangement of trinary trios.

 

[d4m10n]

Here you go here are a selection of other genders from around the world. Click on the map to see the variety of ways these have been expressed.



http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/

That's a really cool map, but it doesn't really tell us how many sets of gender norms are generally recognized by (non-Aboriginal) Australians.

For that matter, it doesn't really tell us whether the sistergirls of the Tiwi Islands are held to something distinct from feminine social norms, within their own cultural milieu, but it's certainly an interesting topic for further inquiry.

 

[Belz...]

That's a really cool map, but it doesn't really tell us how many sets of gender norms are generally recognized by (non-Aboriginal) Australians.

For that matter, it doesn't really tell us whether the sistergirls of the Tiwi Islands are held to something distinct from feminine social norms, within their own cultural milieu, but it's certainly an interesting topic for further inquiry.

I think we're getting confused as to what gender means, here. What did you mean by it, exactly?

 

[d4m10n]

That's not what a gender is. You can't just pick any subgroup in a population and call it a gender.

As the master of the hypothetical, I can do anything within the bounds of reason and imagination. If a society chose to exempt some group from the norms of both masculinity and femininity, what would you call it other than a third gender?

I think we're getting confused as to what gender means, here. What did you mean by it, exactly?

See post 62 for what I nearly always mean by gender.

 

[Strawberry]

Lol

WTF?

So Trans men are women being misogynistic?

Why, you think there's no such thing as internalised misogyny?

Not that I am saying transmen necessarily have it, I'm just asking about your "lol, wtf" reaction to my post.

 

[Darat]

Apparently the dominant cultural taboo is seeing the bodies of the opposite sex, regardless of whether there is any sexual interest whatsoever. So straight women do not object to the possibility of being ogled by lecherous lesbians in the lockerroom, but fear the presence of a gay man in there ignoring them. This seems odd to me, but then so much seems odd I can't even begin to fathom people.

It really does seen to always end up being which set of dangly bits people have.

Personally unless I want to use someone's dangly bits I don't care which set of dangly bits they have or if they have dangly bits at all.

 

[Darat]

And the reality is that transwomen are not women. Transwomen are a type of man.



This nonsense really is the creationism of the left.

What on earth has it got to do with "the left"?

 

[Darat]

I'm confused. Are transgenders supposed to be the third (and fourth?) factual gender Thor2 says we've observed?

Nope. Some of us have gone down the wrong rabbit hole in this thread! We got confused, sorry.

 

[deadrose]

Could I just interject a plea that the other thread *stay* in the other thread? I've completely given up on it, and I really don't want to see this thread go down the same road.

 

[Strawberry]

What on earth has it got to do with "the left"?

Good point actually, a lot of the people pushing this particular form of biology denial are very right wing, eg Bruce Jenner.

 

[Darat]

Depends on what non binary gender you are talking about. It is a hugely broad and diverse group of people, who only share the trait of rejecting man or woman as a label.

This is where and what I have to admit I struggle to understand.

As a gay man in the culture I grew up in a gay man wasn't considered a "real" man. So I think you could say being a gay man was considered a third gender, not a woman, not a man but something else.

But even from a young age I rejected that imposed identification, I was a man regardless of who I had sex with.

But (yet another but) I always rejected many of the defining qualities of what a man was meant to be in that culture. (Just as an example or two: men don't cry or men don't sew).

I do wonder if I was growing up today whether I would have adopted a self identification of 'non binary"?

 

[ponderingturtle]

This is where and what I have to admit I struggle to understand.

As a gay man in the culture I grew up in a gay man wasn't considered a "real" man. So I think you could say being a gay man was considered a third gender, not a woman, not a man but something else.

But even from a young age I rejected that imposed identification, I was a man regardless of who I had sex with.

But (yet another but) I always rejected many of the defining qualities of what a man was meant to be in that culture. (Just as an example or two: men don't cry or men don't sew).

I do wonder if I was growing up today whether I would have adopted a self identification of 'non binary"?

I don't know. As a straight cis man I don't get why my friends feel it is important to be viewed as other than a man or woman, just that they do. And that may or may not accompany body disphoria on top of gender issues.