Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[Giordano]

Simply repeating that you've stated something does not demonstrate that the statement is correct.

If you think intersex people are not one or the other, you have been misinformed.


No one said that. My point is that you are confusing the two with your argument. As I've already stated.

Furthermore, the distinction between sex and gender was minimal until very recently. Changing a definition does not change the reality of what the word represents.



I think we agree that the answer to that is "whatever trans individual want", up to a reasonable degree.


Only if you define "gender" as "gender identity", which is silly.



Your explanation was incorrect. That's what you refuse to understand.

Someone who is “intersex” is male or female? Really? The term is a lie? Or are you somehow putting the cart before the horse and beginning with the presumption that someone has to be binary male or female and must be assigned one way or another based on a smidgen, the slightest nudge, in the balance of their phenotypes toward male or female?

As I’ve repeatedly brought up I think the “sex is gametes” argument is a meaningless and very flawed attempt to distract from the key issue of gender and society. It doesn’t reflect what is crucial to trans people’s lives or the debates as to their place in society. It also represents a huge face plant when trying to define sex for prepubescent children, sterile adults, and post menopausal women. Do we really view these people as having no sex? When a baby is born do we say, “It’s a boy!” or do we wait for 12 years until we are willing to hazard a guess after a semen analysis?


As to your second highlighted statement: fine I’m happy. with that. I began here discussing the broader issue of gender, but was told that is not the point under discussion. If thread has become a narrow debate of if trans women make sperm or not it seems silly to me and I have little interest in participating.

 

[JoeMorgue]

We're dumping too many topics into the cart and not keeping them straight.

Intersex is an actual medical condition (or collection of conditions to be more accurate) that has actual objective criteria applied to, it's not a term you can just apply to yourself.

Transgender and gender identity are very different things.

"Some people (in extreme outlier cases making up less 1% of individuals) don't meet the biological definition of male or female... therefore gender is a personally applied identity" is a bit of jump.

Again there's a difference between being short and having Achondroplasia. And neither of those is being Shaq height and going "I'm tall but identify as short" or going "My height sex is 7'1" but my height gender is 4'3""

And height actually is fuzzy edged with no clear demarcation between short and tall.t

 

[Giordano]

You picked a strange example for this discussion. What sort of accident to you imagine can turn a man into a woman, or vice versa?
I also wasn't aware of exclusive "short spaces" that tall people were trying to gain access to. But I guess there's a kink for everything.

Castration by the gamete definition of sex.

 

[d4m10n]

Oh, well, I guess you're wholly justified in hand-waving away the deconstruction of it and pretending like everything Rowling said was entirely accurate and fair. That's some rigorous critical thinking, right there.

I have not done that. To the contrary, I've asked for specific examples of where she got something wrong.

 

[caveman1917]

Castration by the gamete definition of sex.

Are you claiming that castrated males start producing ova?

 

[caveman1917]

Someone who is “intersex” is male or female? Really? The term is a lie? Or are you somehow putting the cart before the horse and beginning with the presumption that someone has to be binary male or female and must be assigned one way or another based on a smidgen, the slightest nudge, in the balance of their phenotypes toward male or female?

As I’ve repeatedly brought up I think the “sex is gametes” argument is a meaningless and very flawed attempt to distract from the key issue of gender and society. It doesn’t reflect what is crucial to trans people’s lives or the debates as to their place in society. It also represents a huge face plant when trying to define sex for prepubescent children, sterile adults, and post menopausal women. Do we really view these people as having no sex? When a baby is born do we say, “It’s a boy!” or do we wait for 12 years until we are willing to hazard a guess after a semen analysis?


As to your second highlighted statement: fine I’m happy. with that. I began here discussing the broader issue of gender, but was told that is not the point under discussion. If thread has become a narrow debate of if trans women make sperm or not it seems silly to me and I have little interest in participating.

If you didn't want your claim of biological sex not being binary to be challenged then you shouldn't have made it.

 

[Giordano]

We're dumping too many topics into the cart and not keeping them straight.

Intersex is an actual medical condition that has actual objective criteria applied to, it's not a term you can just apply to yourself.

Transgender and gender identity are very different things.
"Some people (in extreme outlier cases making up less 1% of individuals) don't meet the biological definition of male or female... therefore gender is a personally applied identity" is a bit of jump.

It is important to avoid confusion. My point from intersex individuals is only that gender is not binary. And notably a number of trans-sexual did begin from some intersex start.

 

[d4m10n]

My point from intersex individuals is only that gender is not binary.

Even if no intersex individuals existed, we'd still have people who identify as gender nonbinary.

 

[TragicMonkey]

You picked a strange example for this discussion.

I didn't pick it, someone else did. This forum has a problem with overusing analogies. And, apparently, also a problem with reading all of a post before responding to it.

 

[Ziggurat]

I didn't pick it, someone else did.

You picked losing legs in an accident.

This forum has a problem with overusing analogies.

I agree. I wanted to think of an analogy for this, but I couldn't think of a good one and it would be beating a dead horse anyways.

And, apparently, also a problem with reading all of a post before responding to it.

I read all of it. My comment stands.

 

[Meadmaker]

Then can you rephrase the following to make it inclusive of infertile people?

I could, but that would miss the point.

But I followed the comment back to the origin, and the point, of either my post or the post I was replying to, was kind of difficult to follow anyway. I don't think I'm going to try and salvage it.

It will come back around. This conversation always does. Maybe it will be more coherent next time.

 

[TragicMonkey]

You picked losing legs in an accident.

Well, better to lose the legs than the arms, don't you think? Unless you're a professional Irish dancer, then you might choose the other way around.

I agree. I wanted to think of an analogy for this, but I couldn't think of a good one and it would be beating a dead horse anyways.

You admit you privilege living vs unliving equines? That's pretty racist. And totally indefensible until you can present an utterly watertight philosophical argument explaining exactly what life actually is, because we can't decide how to treat anybody unless we have all the background worked out completely.

I read all of it. My comment stands.

Stands?! In a post about leglessness?! How dare you, sir? How very dare you! You're as unfeeling as someone who lost all their nerves in an accident and then got barred from a nerveless-only airport lounge!

 

[Giordano]

Even if no intersex individuals existed, we'd still have people who identify as gender nonbinary.

And if my uncle was my aunt... Oh, strangely appropriate here

Probably in terms of physically observable intersex, but the people who identify as gender non binary do so ultimately for biological reasons. How they think of themselves is wired into the synapses and action potentials of their brains. Possibly due in part by hormones, or by genetics we don’t yet fully understand, or by experiences. But our thoughts and views all have a basis in terms of how our brain physically functions. So if the definition of intersex relates to physical properties beyond gametes, then gender non binary probably itself is a form of intersex - intersex related to brain properties.

 

[Belz...]

Someone who is “intersex” is male or female? Really? The term is a lie? Or are you somehow putting the cart before the horse and beginning with the presumption that someone has to be binary male or female and must be assigned one way or another based on a smidgen, the slightest nudge, in the balance of their phenotypes toward male or female?

I'm suggesting that you are misinformed. The next step for you would be to inform yourself, not to act incredulous as if this is somehow an argument.

As I’ve repeatedly brought up I think the “sex is gametes” argument is a meaningless and very flawed attempt to distract from the key issue of gender and society. It doesn’t reflect what is crucial to trans people’s lives or the debates as to their place in society.

This sounds like you want to define it in a way that supports your conclusion; something that in your own words would be "putting the cart before the horse".

It also represents a huge face plant when trying to define sex for prepubescent children, sterile adults, and post menopausal women.

Take it up with the people who brought up this definition, not me.

 

[Belz...]

My point from intersex individuals is only that gender is not binary. And notably a number of trans-sexual did begin from some intersex start.

For heaven's sake, man, you're still using sex and gender interchangeably. Are they the same thing or not?

 

[Giordano]

If you didn't want your claim of biological sex not being binary to be challenged then you shouldn't have made it.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want it to be challenged but that I was surprised it was challenged. I continue to explain why it is deeply flawed. But how many times I want to repeat my rebuttals of that one point are very limited by how narrow and irrelevant I see it to be. If this is an argument only about sperm and ova production then it is boring to me. Except for what little thrill I obtain by bringing up cis males and females who don’t make gametes at all, or “the wrong ones.”

 

[Giordano]

For heaven's sake, man, you're still using sex and gender interchangeably. Are they the same thing or not?

I was responding to a post using the term “gender.”

Intersex is a real, common used term, as is trans-sexual.

And I’ve explained multiple times why I refuse to narrow my discussion to “sex” rather than gender. Again if this thread has become a sperm vs. ovo debate, I’m out. That seems to me to be a silly attempt to find some one property to allow cis people to be the only ones who are “real” men and “real” women. And that is deeply flawed as well for the reasons I don’t feel I needlessly need to repeat.

I don’t feel I need to be limited to discussing this definition. Or I may just check out.

 

[d4m10n]

...people who identify as gender non binary do so ultimately for biological reasons. How they think of themselves is wired into the synapses and action potentials of their brains. Possibly due in part by hormones, or by genetics we don’t yet fully understand, or by experiences.

I think that about covers the space of possibilities.

Experiences may be a crucial factor here, though, e.g. the experience of being told you don't have to identify with or express yourself as either the feminine or masculine gender. This strikes me as a fairly positive experience, though my white evangelical relatives would likely disagree.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

 

[Giordano]

I'm suggesting that you are misinformed. The next step for you would be to inform yourself, not to act incredulous as if this is somehow an argument.



This sounds like you want to define it in a way that supports your conclusion; something that in your own words would be "putting the cart before the horse".



Take it up with the people who brought up this definition, not me.

I have. But you seem to have adopted it too.

 

[JoeMorgue]

For heaven's sake, man, you're still using sex and gender interchangeably. Are they the same thing or not?

Yes. No. Maybe.