Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[ponderingturtle]

The folks who keep insisting that "sex isn't binary" if sex is taken to mean a particular process of reproduction.

Technically you have male, female and other. So not a strict binary as you have to have somewhere to put all those not capable of reproduction as either male or female.

 

[theprestige]

How about we put off dealing with your hypothetical situations until we deal with the actual, very simple situation we're dealing with: It it reasonable that intransigent scumbags can't handle addressing and describing other people the way those other people want?

Leaving aside the well-poisoning and question-begging in your argument*, it seems pretty reasonable to me. People don't address other people the way other people want all the time, for a wide range of reasons. Being intransigent on this point seems reasonably within the mainstream of human attitudes and behavior.

I don't see why this particular question is so important that it must derail every single other discussion on the subject. Or why Emily's Cat must set aside her discussion to accommodate your rhetoric.

I'm sure some people are quite awful about their disrespect for the needs and wants of transsexuals. I think it's reasonable to note it and move on. Or just move on. If you think it deserves special examination, then do it yourself and post it here. Don't demand that the rest of us drop our own conversations and tell you about it. How is that reasonable?

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*

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited to remove personalisation

 

[zooterkin]

Technically you have male, female and other. So not a strict binary as you have to have somewhere to put all those not capable of reproduction as either male or female.

Bollocks. Do I stop being male if I have a vasectomy (or double orchidectomy), despite having two children?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Bollocks. Do I stop being male if I have a vasectomy (or double orchidectomy), despite having two children?

Sure, same as if you became a Eunuch from testicular cancer. Why is pointing out that you are no longer a man a problem? It is just a technical definition nothing to get upset about. You can claim to still be a man all you want but you fail to meet the definition like trans women and women.

 

[lionking]

Sure, same as if you became a Eunuch from testicular cancer. Why is pointing out that you are no longer a man a problem? It is just a technical definition nothing to get upset about. You can claim to still be a man all you want but you fail to meet the definition like trans women and women.

You have repeated this same argument countless times. You are wrong countless times.

 

[ponderingturtle]

You have repeated this same argument countless times. You are wrong countless times.

Where am I wrong? d4m10n was bringing up the same point, the nice bright line of reproduction to determine what is male vs female. You just need somewhere to dump all those who fail to meet that definition.

Otherwise intersex people make a mess out of the whole concept, so you have to filter them out and reproductive ability is a nice bright line.

It is nice easy simple and logical, why don't you actually argue against it instead of just declaring by divine proclamation that it is wrong? It gets people exactly what they want, and at no cost as there is nothing insulting or off putting about denying someones gender identity.

 

[theprestige]

The fact that intersex people traditionally have chosen (or had chosen for them) to live "as" a certain gender regardless of their reproductive organs or chromoasomes speaks to the fact that gender identity is not simple.

The fact that intersex people choose to live as one of two genders speaks to the fact that, simple or not, gender and gender identity are binary.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The fact that intersex people choose to live as one of two genders speaks to the fact that, simple or not, gender and gender identity are binary.

Not necessarily. Such people might choose to live as an unspecified third gender, or no gender at all, if given that option. Up until now there were generally only two options offered. We can't conclude based on a very limited menu that only those foods exist.

 

[theprestige]

Not necessarily. Such people might choose to live as an unspecified third gender, or no gender at all, if given that option. Up until now there were generally only two options offered. We can't conclude based on a very limited menu that only those foods exist.

"Male, female, both, or neither" still seems pretty binary to me. Not simple, but still binary.

You can't reject both options in a binary choice unless it's a binary choice you're rejecting.

If there were three genders and you rejected all of them, you'd be rejecting a trinary choice, not creating a fourth gender like the other three.

 

[d4m10n]

I want to be described as Master of the World.

It's going to take somewhat less effort to just say "Belz," I hope that's ok.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

 

[JoeMorgue]

- "People are using a bunch of different definitions" doesn't turn binary into a spectrum.

- Rare exceptions do not turn binary into a spectrum.

- "Why won't you just shut up and use the language they want and stop being so difficult?" works just as well for otherkin and I ain't calling you a dragon or a unicorn either.

 

[TragicMonkey]

"Male, female, both, or neither" still seems pretty binary to me. Not simple, but still binary.

You can't reject both options in a binary choice unless it's a binary choice you're rejecting.

If there were three genders and you rejected all of them, you'd be rejecting a trinary choice, not creating a fourth gender like the other three.

Yeah, but up until now only two options were offered, so people assumed it must be naturally binary. Tomorrow when there are three options will everyone assume gender must be a trinary thing? Next Wednesday there will be twenty genders, and by the end of August there will be one thousand. Experts are predicting gender options will grow faster than new Covid cases.

Personally, I'm wondering if really there aren't seven billion plus real genders and we're all just lumping them together in big groups for the sake of convenience. Or maybe gender isn't actually a real thing, it's just clumsy shorthand for a set of behaviors and characteristics, like "Karen" or "dudebro".

 

[TragicMonkey]

- "People are using a bunch of different definitions" doesn't turn binary into a spectrum.

Gheg or Tosk? Which of the two major groups of Albanian dialects do you speak? It's a binary choice: either Gheg, or Tosk? I refuse to consider the possibility that non-Albanian languages exist, therefore it's definitely a binary choice. Which are you?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Gheg or Tosk? Which of the two major groups of Albanian dialects do you speak? It's a binary choice: either Gheg, or Tosk? I refuse to consider the possibility that non-Albanian languages exist, therefore it's definitely a binary choice. Which are you?

That metaphor would hold if:

A) The idea that Gheg and Tosk had any differences was already established as an offensive idea.
B) There was some subgroup of people speaking Gheg (as in their vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, etc where all identical to someone speaking Gheg but demanded that everyone just magically thought they were speaking Tosk because they "identity" as Tosk Speakers.
C) I was getting screamed at that Gheg was going to rape Tosk in the bathroom first chance it got if I didn't keep the languages straight.

 

[TragicMonkey]

That metaphor would hold if:

A) The idea that Gheg and Tosk had any differences was already established as an offensive idea.
B) There was some subgroup of people speaking Gheg (as in their vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, etc where all identical to someone speaking Gheg but demanded that everyone just magically thought they were speaking Tosk because they "identity" as Tosk Speakers.
C) I was getting screamed at that Gheg was going to rape Tosk in the bathroom first chance it got if I didn't keep the languages straight.

All of that is irrelevant unless you're suggesting that you only think gender is binary because people are mean to other people based on gender sometimes. If tomorrow we all woke up angelically kind to each other does that mean gender would no longer be binary, in your view?

Typical Tosk-speaker fuzzy thinking, there.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The whole "binary/spectrum" argument is already irrelevant, just another read herring, since it never seems to get us any closer to what we're supposed to functionally do different outside of pure semantic categorization.

It's just the "Is being gay a choice or genetically predispositioned" argument, since as soon as we start having it we establish it doesn't actually matter since nobody who thought being gay was okay cared and it nobody who thought being gay was not okay cared either. It was pure semantic hijack for the sake of pure semantic hijack, or as we call it now "All discourse that ever happens."

It's just one person screaming "No you have four fingers and a thumb!" and another person screaming "No you have five fingers!" at each other over and over and if you go "Wait you're making this harder than it needs to be, just clarify if you consider the thumb a finger or not" they both look at you for several seconds as if you've gone mad, then go right back to screaming at each other about how many fingers you have.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The whole "binary/spectrum" argument is just another read herring, since it never seems to get us any closer to what we're supposed to functionally do different outside of pure semantic categorization.

It's just the "Is being gay a choice or genetically predispositioned" argument, since as soon as we start having it we establish it doesn't actually matter.

I'm not clear on what gender is even supposed to be. I don't think it matters, compared to sex.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I'm not clear on what gender is even supposed to be.

NOBODY IS! Anyone who says differently at this point is lying.

It's pure semantics. It's trying to put sexual stereotypes (women do this, men do this) back on the table under a new name so they can be used by people who use them in non-traditional ways and it's supposed to mean something.

 

[d4m10n]

d4m10n was bringing up the same point, the nice bright line of reproduction to determine what is male vs female. You just need somewhere to dump all those who fail to meet that definition.

I don't think this is nearly as difficult as you're making it out to be, at least 99% of the time. People born with testes and functional androgen receptors will eventually undergo the virilizing effects of endogenous testosterone, at which point they would start to acquire something of an unfair advantage in women's rugby, weightlifting, etc.

 

[Belz...]

Sure, same as if you became a Eunuch from testicular cancer. Why is pointing out that you are no longer a man a problem? It is just a technical definition nothing to get upset about.

Except that it's false. We've never defined "man" this way.