Non-binary identities are valid

[HansMustermann]

Well, I’m not totally convinced it is a failed analogy because the attributes are analogous in one important way - your ethnicity or race is a fixed attribute that you can’t really change, just like your sex. take Noah, the man is clearly black, and it didn’t make a difference what ideological regime was in place that considered him not black enough or white enough or whatever. He is a black man. Incidentally Rashida Jones would have been a better example for you to use as she is black but white passing but w/e. Mixed race people - like moi and jones - can be complicated I guess, maybe you have a point there and the analogy does break down in those cases. the analogy is messy, a lot of them are, but I think you got what I was getting at, no? One can’t really change sex or negate it no more than I can become a white female or a non identity, regardless of what an ideological paradigm says that I can

No. What you're saying there is that whatever YOUR criteria are, however YOU judge a person's race, that's the one holy pronouncement that determines it. More infallible than the Pope, even.

If it's YOUR decreeing that some guy is 100% in the black category, then it doesn't matter if some 100 million actual Bantu blacks think he's a half-breed. If YOU say it's binary, then apparently that settles it, there are no shades. You're THAT important, apparently.

Sorry, that's just flippin' stupid and delusional.

As for #2 I see what you’re get at. But tends to matter to people in the group - like, look at Rachel dolezal she is a white women who claims to be transracial Black and that **** is offensive to black people for a bunch or reasons, including how she used her transracial identity taking positions that should have gone to ados. I hope I don’t have to explain why. Moreover it’s just not true - she is not black. (Socially, meaning how you are treated in public by society by race shouldn’t matter, nor politically, meaning the law shouldn’t discriminate on race and treat everyone as individuals)

Except AGAIN, for the fact that a mere century ago someone even whiter than Rachel Anne Dolezal could actually be classified as black, if she had any blacks in her ancestry. So again, what you're saying is just that if YOU pronounce her to be 100% in one category, then that's it, that's what settles it definitively, that's all the test we need.

And again, that's just flippin' stupid and delusional.

 

[theprestige]

Why not?

On the one hand, the rules for binary restrooms don't have anything to say about nonbinary self-identifiers. Whatever affects their access, it won't be their self-identification.

On the other hand, nihilism and radical choice: Ultimately, the only things that affect whether they can use the lady's bathroom is their own will to do so and their power to impose their will on the world around them.

 

[Earthborn]

So just to be clear: You are claiming that doctors assign "everything to do with men and women" except biological sex to newborns?

There is a difference between "a gender" and the general concept of "gender". Just like there is a difference between "a sex" and the general concept of "sex". I was providing a definition of the general concept of "gender". Doctors assign "a gender" (boy xor girl) to a newborn, basing this on eir sex (male or female). This assignment will have lasting consequences for the child, mostly bureaucratic ones. An M or F on one's birth certificate is not in itself a biological fact, even if it is based on one.

 

[d4m10n]

On the one hand, the rules for binary restrooms don't have anything to say about nonbinary self-identifiers. Whatever affects their access, it won't be their self-identification.

I'd say this depends largely on whose rules you're looking at.


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[theprestige]

I'd say this depends largely on whose rules you're looking at.

I would say it's tautological. If the rules account for nonbinary identification, then it's not a binary restroom.

 

[d4m10n]

I would say it's tautological. If the rules account for nonbinary identification, then it's not a binary restroom.

Again, we'd have to look at the specific policies or laws in place. Some of them explicitly segregate bathrooms by gender rather than sex, others vice-versa. Any policy which makes subjective sense of self the fundamental criterion for bathroom use would have to allow non-binary persons into either room, AFAICT (IMO YMMV).

 

[caveman1917]

There is a difference between "a gender" and the general concept of "gender". Just like there is a difference between "a sex" and the general concept of "sex". I was providing a definition of the general concept of "gender". Doctors assign "a gender" (boy xor girl) to a newborn, basing this on eir sex (male or female). This assignment will have lasting consequences for the child, mostly bureaucratic ones. An M or F on one's birth certificate is not in itself a biological fact, even if it is based on one.

By that logic astronomers assign zodiac signs to people, because they observe the stars and write down their observations. Of course, astronomers do not assign zodiac signs to people, astronomers merely observe and categorize physical reality in the night sky. The whole assigning zodiac signs and ascribing socio-cultural phenomena to those zodiac signs is what other people do by extrapolating from what astronomers observe.

Similarly, doctors do not assign gender to newborns, they merely observe and write down newborns' sex. The whole assigning genders to those observations of sex is what other people do by extrapolating what doctors observe. Doctors observe sex, in the past in some very rare cases (in DSD people) doctors would "assign" sex when sex couldn't be determined by observation, but even that doesn't happen anymore. Doctors do not assign gender.

Claiming that a doctor assigned your gender because they observed and wrote down your sex is the same as claiming that an astronomer assigned your zodiac sign because they observed and wrote down the observable stars in the night sky.

 

[arthwollipot]

This will probably come across more harsh than I mean, but why am I supposed to care what some other persons chosen gender is, unless they happen to be close Whanau?

This is exactly it. You're not. Except inasmuch as you use the appropriate pronouns.

 

[arthwollipot]

In my opinion, there are two separate discussions that are happening. One is the discussion on the rights of transgendered people. The other is the discussion on whether a transgendered person's gender objectively differs from their sex. And many people on both sides seem to think that one issue somehow depends on the other. Why?

Even the most contentious issues, like sports and bathrooms or whatever, can be considered in practical terms, completely separate from questions about gender.

If someone developed a procedure that could switch a person's chromosomes around and, I don't know, make their bodies produce the right hormones, would anything actually change? Why? And if nothing would change, why does it matter whether a transgendered person was objectively born in the wrong body?

Again, this may seem like nitpicking, but it's not - the word is "transgender" not "transgendered". The latter makes it seem like it is something that has happened to someone, rather than something that they are.

Just wanted to point that out before returning to the topic of nonbinariness.

 

[arthwollipot]

I couldn't give a rats **** what some randoms gender is.

So why am I supposed to remember to use stupid weird pronouns around them?

Very few - in fact, a vanishingly small number - of people are going to ask you to.

This give and take stuff works both ways.

I am happy referring to a trans women as she if they aren't a ****

But i am not going to make the effort to remember who is "vis", or "xyr", or "hir", or "pers". Or "them"

For a start I have been taught through my entire life calling someone "them" is disrespectful.

It's time to start unlearning that. "They/them" is the preferred pronoun for the vast majority of nonbinary people. The vast majority. And for those who do prefer a nonstandard pronoun, use they/them anyway. They will appreciate that you at least made an effort.

This is just stupid

It's not. It's simple human respect and courtesy.

 

[Belz...]

It's not. It's simple human respect and courtesy.

Simple respect and courtesy doesn't mean to call people whatever they want to be called.

 

[Earthborn]

Claiming that a doctor assigned your gender because they observed and wrote down your sex is the same as claiming that an astronomer assigned your zodiac sign because they observed and wrote down the observable stars in the night sky.

It is not quite the same, as a person's zodiac sign isn't something that is registered on their birth certificate. If a doctor just wrote down a newborn's sex in a medical record with no other bureaucratic consequences you could indeed claim they were not "assiging a gender".

 

[Belz...]

It is not quite the same, as a person's zodiac sign isn't something that is registered on their birth certificate. If a doctor just wrote down a newborn's sex in a medical record with no other bureaucratic consequences you could indeed claim they were not "assiging a gender".

Once again: they are observing the sex, not assigning it.

 

[Ziggurat]

There is a difference between "a gender" and the general concept of "gender". Just like there is a difference between "a sex" and the general concept of "sex". I was providing a definition of the general concept of "gender". Doctors assign "a gender" (boy xor girl) to a newborn, basing this on eir sex (male or female). This assignment will have lasting consequences for the child, mostly bureaucratic ones. An M or F on one's birth certificate is not in itself a biological fact, even if it is based on one.

There are actually very few bureaucratic consequences for the sex listed on birth certificates. Most of what you refer to gender arises completely independently of what's on the birth certificate. Even if you want to argue that children are socialized into their gender roles by society (ie, claim that there are no innate behavioral differences between the sexes), the birth certificate is still irrelevant to that for most things. Seriously, how many parents do you think have to consult their child's birth certificate in order to know what sex their child is?

This "doctors assign gender" claim is politically correct dogmatic nonsense, and isn't even internally consistent.

 

[lomiller]

Well, I’m not totally convinced it is a failed analogy because the attributes are analogous in one important way - your ethnicity or race is a fixed attribute that you can’t really change, just like your sex.

Nope, just the opposite in fact. “Race” is meaningless in a biological sense. Rather, it’s a cultural construct consisting of learned behaviors. Of course, some here would argue that the same is true of gender, so maybe they are not all that different after all.

 

[lomiller]

There is a difference between "a gender" and the general concept of "gender". Just like there is a difference between "a sex" and the general concept of "sex". I was providing a definition of the general concept of "gender". Doctors assign "a gender" (boy xor girl) to a newborn, basing this on eir sex (male or female). This assignment will have lasting consequences for the child, mostly bureaucratic ones. An M or F on one's birth certificate is not in itself a biological fact, even if it is based on one.

If we are going to differentiate between sex and gender, it seems more likely the doctor is merely identifying the sex of the child than “assigning it a gender”. Any reference to gender in this context is most likely a holdover from when the terms were viewed as synonymous.

 

[JihadJane]

Again, this may seem like nitpicking, but it's not - the word is "transgender" not "transgendered". The latter makes it seem like it is something that has happened to someone, rather than something that they are.

Just wanted to point that out before returning to the topic of nonbinariness.

In this video 'Trans is not a thing you are, it's a thing you do', Arty Morty argues that "it makes a lot more sense, and it would eliminate a lot of confusion among young people, to frame transsexualism as an action one takes, rather than an innate, immutable identity that one discovers about oneself."



It is very far from scientifically established that being transgender is something that you simply are. Morty suggests, instead, that it is something that you do in an attempt to resolve troubling psychological issues.

Furthermore, the huge and unprecedented explosion of teenage girls deciding they're trans indicates, at least in their case, that it can be driven by psychological and social processes rather than being something innate within us.

 

[p0lka]

Just shooting the **** here:


in order to consider oneself as "non-binary", one would probably had to grow up in an environment that has some very strong norms about gender roles and characteristics to begin with: it's hard to fall outside a norm that is wishy-washy to begin with.

My second eldest kid decided to not want to be defined by a gender, they take hormones to keep that neutral balance.
The family environment was very much be who you want to be, there were no norms at all.

As a kid myself I washed dolls hair in the bath etc, so my parents weren't doing norms either.
EDIT:
sorry, il go read the thread now.

 

[d4m10n]

Once again: they are observing the sex, not assigning it.

I think it might be fair to say that gender is assigned by one's parents and immediate social circle over the first few years of life.

From the relevant wiki:

After age three, core gender identity is extremely difficult to change, and attempts to reassign it can result in gender dysphoria. Gender identity refinement extends into the fourth to sixth years of age, and continues into young adulthood.

Martin and Ruble conceptualize this process of development as three stages: (1) as toddlers and preschoolers, children learn about defined characteristics, which are socialized aspects of gender; (2) around the ages of 5–7 years, identity is consolidated and becomes rigid; (3) after this "peak of rigidity," fluidity returns and socially defined gender roles relax somewhat.

(Internal citations omitted)

 

[Emily's Cat]

Such as?

Such as...

Asking another person if they have a spare tampon because you've had an unexpected "visitor".
Asking another person in the changing room for help undoing the back of a dress.
Deciding whether or not it would be socially acceptable for you to unzip and pee into the bushes with them close enough to see your wedding tackle.
Figuring our whether it's a good idea to talk about poop and farts with that person


I could go on, but hopefully you get the picture.