Non-binary identities are valid

[Belz...]

Would you agree that if the citations bear out these claims, these are specific examples that support Zaganza's point?

I would not, unless we're grasping at straws and reinterpreting things to suit our argument. Zaganza's point wasn't that women who are barren have historically been treated like crap, but that they weren't treated as the gender "woman". None of what you've provided bears that out.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I would not, unless we're grasping at straws and reinterpreting things to suit our argument. Zaganza's point wasn't that women who are barren have historically been treated like crap, but that they weren't treated as the gender "woman". None of what you've provided bears that out.

It sounds to me that you are straw-manning me.
That might be the result of poor articulation of on my part, which in turn lead you to misunderstand it.

All I was trying to convey was that, as a gender-identify marker, being able to produce children is as arbitrary anything else anyone, including you, can come up with.
But it was something that was used in the past to legitimate treating a barren woman as not a "proper woman". i.e. not real female at all. The Bible especially is full of examples of women defining themselves exclusively by the children they have or failed to produce.

I think The Prestige put it rather well that we are all on a spectrum, and there is nothing we can use to unambiguous define male or female.

And I wonder what would be the benefit even if we could.

 

[angrysoba]

This is the weirdest thread.

 

[Belz...]

It sounds to me that you are straw-manning me.

Well it wasn't my intention. Let's try again.

All I was trying to convey was that, as a gender-identify marker, being able to produce children is as arbitrary anything else anyone, including you, can come up with.

Maybe it's arbitrary, but it's not a marker of gender identity or even gender, I'm told, only biological sex. This continues the trend I see in your posts of confusing all these terms together. It makes it very hard to have a discussion because I'm not sure you're clear on what you want to say.

But it was something that was used in the past to legitimate treating a barren woman as not a "proper woman". i.e. not real female at all. The Bible especially is full of examples of women defining themselves exclusively by the children they have or failed to produce.

Can you give me real examples, please? Quotations, I mean.

I think The Prestige put it rather well that we are all on a spectrum, and there is nothing we can use to unambiguous define male or female.

Come on, man. We've made that distinction for thousands of years; more even, without issue. In almost every case you can imagine, we can identity males and females, men and women, boys and girls, quite readily, and in the overwhelming majority of cases the gender identity of the person will match. We use a number of indicators, and with modern science we can correlate them with genetics and other physical evidence.

To claim that none of that holds now because of a tiny number of exceptions is ludicrous.

And I wonder what would be the benefit even if we could.

Well, humans in general seem to think that it's beneficial. I, for example, am attracted to women, not men. Being able to tell one apart from the other is quite useful. It's been quite useful in sports, too. Surely you won't claim that there is no such thing as a man or a woman.

 

[HansMustermann]

How do you unpack something that’s fundamentally incoherent like non-binary is what I mean.

TBH, I'm not sure why it's such a problem conceptualizing that only one specific variable can have more than two values, when you obviously have no problem with other variables having more than two values. And I say obviously, because you wouldn't even be able to function if your brain absolutely, universally couldn't work with more than two states per variable. I mean, even if you're colour blind, you must be able to at least figure out the concept of "grey".

 

[Robin]

There appears to still be an assumption that someone who isn't at either end of the spectrum must be somewhere in between.

Let's say that one end of the spectrum is people who still like the Ritz Brothers and the other end of the spectrum is people who stopped liking the Ritz Brothers.

Non-binary folk would then be those whose previous liking of the Ritz Brothers is in various states of decline.

But there is a whole set of people who are not at one end, not at the other and nowhere in between. For example those who never liked the Ritz Brothers, or never seen the Ritz Brothers or never heard of them.

So with gender (whatever it turns out to be) just because someone does not definitely identify as a man or definitely identify as a woman does not mean they are in between.

 

[Belz...]

TBH, I'm not sure why it's such a problem conceptualizing that only one specific variable can have more than two values, when you obviously have no problem with other variables having more than two values.

Because not every variable has more than two values?

 

[d4m10n]

This is the weirdest thread.

I mean how hard can it be to show that a particular subjective state of mind is "valid and real" anyhow?

ETA: I just realized that the Tweet linked in the OP is from someone who uses blocklists, so it might be tricky to see. Here is the screencap, instead:

 

[HansMustermann]

There appears to still be an assumption that someone who isn't at either end of the spectrum must be somewhere in between.

There also being grey in addition to black and white, was just a vision-related example, rather than saying it's one-dimensional. I mean, with the same vision related example you may notice that something can also be red, green, blue, or indeed purple. The last one being actually a combination of two; there is no such thing as a purple wavelength.

 

[HansMustermann]

Because not every variable has more than two values?

Well, yes, but then the issue would be whether it's indeed boolean or not, rather than the "How do you unpack something that’s fundamentally incoherent like non-binary" statement I was answering to. I mean, whether it's true or not, there is nothing incoherent or hard to unpack about the idea that a variable might not be a 1 or 0 affair. Even if all your life you've thought that attribute X is binary, it wouldn't be such a hard idea to 'unpack' if I told you that there are other values. Even just by virtue of being already used to the idea, because you've already dealt with other attributes that have more than one value.

I mean, is one particular guy tall or short? How about he's "about average"? It's something that everyone should already be used to.

Is some guy a football or a baseball fan? Well, how about neither? Everyone should be already familiar with the concept that some people might like, say, wrestling instead. Or ping-pong. Or boxing. Or indeed they might not be into any spectator sports at all.

Does some guy come to work by car or do they ride the bus? Well, they might well come by bike instead. Or live nearby and just walk to work. Hell, they might work from home (especially with Corona and stuff) and just roll out of bed and climb into the computer chair. Etc.

Is some gal a blonde or a brunette? Well, how about she's a redhead? Or might be an albino.

Etc, etc, etc.

That's just a 5 minute exercise off the top of my head. It's THAT easy to come up with examples of non-binary attributes that everyone's already dealt with. So whether or not some other variable is indeed binary or not, someone shouldn't find the very notion incoherent or hard to unpack.

 

[Chanakya]

Not to forget the 'both' option!

Okay, lame joke. But still, an at least half-serious question: Might there not be folks who, at times, in certain contexts, identify as male, and at other times, other contexts, as female? With neither times, neither set of contexts, overriding the other in frequency or importance to them? And, indeed, in some times and some contexts identifying as neither?

Come to that, I suggest that, perhaps, we all answer to this model, in a way. Even the most staid and prosaic of us will surely, for example, identify as male in certain contexts, and as sex-is-entirely-irrelevant in others, right, at least these two even if never female? Just a question of degree, I guess, when it comes to which particular aspect -- if any! -- stands out in individual cases.

That could be one way of looking at it. Of course, in cases where at most times and most places what one answers to is 'male' -- for example -- well, that is then what one 'is'.

So sure, it isn't binary, at least not in principle. (Albeit it may often be that, binary I mean, in practice. Or, if not 'often', then 'sometimes'; who knows, perhaps even 'rarely'. That much at least, the answer to that last question, can easily, given sufficient resources, be ascertained pretty much objectively. Provided, of course, the question itself is generally found to be a reasonable one.)

.

Okay, one way to delink this from the physical might be via VR. Immerse a guy in a SL-like VR environment for long enough, where they can be who or what they choose, and see how they actually, in practice, act. What they identify as, there. Given a long enough duration of this, as an experiment, we might be able to find out how frequent, or otherwise, non-binary identification is?

 

[Belz...]

Well, yes, but then the issue would be whether it's indeed boolean or not, rather than the "How do you unpack something that’s fundamentally incoherent like non-binary" statement I was answering to.

I think the reason for that comment is that the poster doesn't think they've seen a proper explanation of what non-binary would mean for biological sex or gender that makes sense to them.

I think you're reading the comment too literally.

 

[Robin]

What I would suggest is that there is no binary, no spectrum and never has been.

Rather gender is a grab bag of disparate, scattered and changing notions and that we overload gender related terms with layers of meaning that depend on context and audience.

 

[arthwollipot]

What I would suggest is that there is no binary, no spectrum and never has been.

Rather gender is a grab bag of disparate, scattered and changing notions and that we overload gender related terms with layers of meaning that depend on context and audience.

This is something that I wholeheartedly agree with.

There have been a lot of questions and demands, but I apologise for the fact that I don't have the mental energy for this discussion today, so I'm just going to ignore them. This should not be taken to mean that I don't have answers, just that I need to conserve my spell slots for things like getting paid to do work. Sorry about that. I'll probably have more energy later in the week.

 

[cullennz]

I linked earlier to an article arguing why misgendering can be considered violence. And this isn't a thread about theism.

Just watched the video you linked to.

A bit of desperate reasoning for why it is a form of violence tbf.

Offensive probably.

 

[MisAndreG]

I don't think there is anything incoherent about deliberately presenting oneself as androgyne^WP, though it seems fairly difficult to pull off successfully.

Yes, but is dressing androgynously what is meant by a person being non-binary? No. They mean they are neither man or women, defined by a set of criteria that would make virtually everyone non-binary. Moreover they will tell you themselves (lol) that how one presents is to be totally disaggregated from a person’s gender identity, and I guess their identity.

Honestly to me this is just nonsense that no one should pay the slightest attention to, but for some strange reason people want to make this a thing we must all be very, very engaged with. And, it makes smart people act silly — I mean, seriously, you have a guy on this thread who I’m sure would go to great lengths to explain to people the supposed difference between gender and sex using the terms for sex interchangeably with gender, which is incoherent and silly.

 

[MisAndreG]

What I would suggest is that there is no binary, no spectrum and never has been.

Rather gender is a grab bag of disparate, scattered and changing notions and that we overload gender related terms with layers of meaning that depend on context and audience.

IMO gender is just the psychological and behavioral characteristics exhibited typically by one sex more than the other. It’s not a special feeling (not that you’re saying it is or even implying it is) or metaphysical or whatever the pronoun brigade think it is. I think if we eliminated gender tomorrow humans would just recapitulate the behaviors and psychology of it all over again and it would look similar to what we see in our society today.

 

[MisAndreG]

Well don't ask me. I've been trying to understand that one for a few years now.

But then, if you buy into the idea that gender is whatever you feel like at any moment, the concept of non-binary flows directly from that.

you know what I’d love to see? I’d love to see the proponents of this stuff apply the same arguments they use about gender and all that to race or ethnicity. Maybe then they’d see how silly they are when they are applied to those categories.

 

[theprestige]

you know what I’d love to see? I’d love to see the proponents of this stuff apply the same arguments they use about gender and all that to race or ethnicity. Maybe then they’d see how silly they are when they are applied to those categories.

Can you give an example of what you mean? Are you thinking of something like the Rachel Dolezal Affair?

 

[angrysoba]

you know what I’d love to see? I’d love to see the proponents of this stuff apply the same arguments they use about gender and all that to race or ethnicity. Maybe then they’d see how silly they are when they are applied to those categories.