"Misgendering" is now a federal offense

[Ron Obvious]

How do you know what's between someone's legs?

Most of us can tell a person's sex with 99+% accuracy without any glance at their genitals at all.

 

[Stout]

That's the definition I go by as well.



Not allowing transgender men in women's sports or dressing rooms? Yes, I'm behind that, because it involves others (biological women) who are losing something real and tangible over what is, in the end, a personal issue about identity.

Then...you're a transphobe. You're either in with the transwomen are women 100% or you're like a phony liberal who votes for Trump when nobody is looking. All the trying to sound nice nice is meaningless if you're not behind transwomen flaunting it in the locker room and cleaning up on the sports field. Brave and Stunning, those are the only words you need to use to describe transwomen.

 

[arthwollipot]

Most of us can tell a person's sex with 99+% accuracy without any glance at their genitals at all.

You think? That's cute.

 

[Ron Obvious]

You think? That's cute.

You ever notice how the self-proclaimed politeness advocates are just ******* rude a lot of the time?

 

[Trausti]

You think? That's cute.

So for you, millions of years of sexual dimorphic evolution only happened to all the other animals, not humans?

 

[Orphia Nay]

I suspect a lot of the vehement anti-trans people in here and elsewhere on the internet would be more polite to trans folk face-to-face.

 

[Stout]

Coming back to the topic of the thread: Mount Holyoke College is an all-women's school. Historically it has been near the forefront of women's liberation and women's equality movements. From the beginning, it sought to give women the same curriculum and the same educational standards as men's colleges.

To me that's an important part of this story, though I'm not sure what to make of it.

The place sounds more like a TERFtopia to me. I mean, if they need a policy so drastic the students aren't allowed to discuss it then these ladies clearly need an attitude adjustment. Nothing a few months internment in a diversity reeducation facility won't cure though.

So, here's the secret. Men actually invented transwomen as revenge for feminism. We heard men complaining that women were invading their spaces, making them tear down their pinups, policing their humor etc. so a bunch of got together at Bohemian Grove, drank a bunch of beers and came up with transwomen.

How do you like THAT ladies? Now we're coming into your intimate spaces, violating your same sex environments and calling you out if you even slightly disagree. Ever wonder why there's no lesbian bars anymore? Yep, we did that too.

 

[arthwollipot]

I suspect a lot of the vehement anti-trans people in here and elsewhere on the internet would be more polite to trans folk face-to-face.

I suspect that some of them wouldn't.

 

[arthwollipot]

So for you, millions of years of sexual dimorphic evolution only happened to all the other animals, not humans?

I guarantee that you (and Ron) have seen a trans person in public and not known that they are trans.

 

[bruto]

The problem I have is that gender decoupled from sex is functionally meaningless. Even preferred pronouns exist only to tell you that someone wants you to pretend to perceive them as a sex other than the biological sex you perceive them as.

That certainly is one way to look at it, if, as you seem to do, you consider that the whole issue is about you. Your perception of what they're not, rather than theirs of what they are.

I suspect some argument could be found about the issue of meaning anyway, not only in the sense that sex is a widely varied area of life, practiced in all sorts of ways by all sorts of people on all sorts of other people, not all involved with the traditional procreative act; but also that there may be areas of one's life and one's perception of it, as well as one's social situation, which could be considered functional without, or despite, biological sex.

Now of course there are all sorts of arguments you can make about this, including the blanket "they're all crazy" that some people fall back on, but if it is meaningless, why is it such a hot topic? Why should those who see no meaning be the ones to say those who do are wrong?

 

[bruto]

I suspect a lot of the vehement anti-trans people in here and elsewhere on the internet would be more polite to trans folk face-to-face.

Some, perhaps, but I rather fear fewer than you would wish.

 

[arthwollipot]

Once again, they're not "preferred" pronouns, they're just pronouns. They're not a "preference" that can be ignored. A pronoun is either the right one, or the wrong one.

Also, It's "trans man" and "trans woman" not "transman" and "transwoman", but I guess the usual suspects are going to ignore that, too.

 

[Ron Obvious]

I guarantee that you (and Ron) have seen a trans person in public and not known that they are trans.

No doubt. But I said 99+ percent for a reason.

 

[Thermal]

Then how do you know?

As has been pointed out, there are women with beards. I myself sport a rather impressive pair of manboobs. When you can't rely on secondary sexual characteristics to make a positive identification, what do you do?

And why do you need to make a positive identification anyway?

Me, I'll call them what they want me to, because I'm polite and respectful of their wishes.

Tis more than mammaries and facial fuzz to an identification. Not that I'd likely mistake manboobs for the good stuff, connoisseur that I am. What's with this act about not being able to recognize a woman as one if she has some facial hair? Does she have a lumberjack beard or something?

And I don't need to do anything. It's automatic. If sex doesn't matter... drum roll drum roll drum roll... then gender matters even less.

I can see your avatar pic. Even without the goatee and the partial angle, I could correctly identify you as a male, pronoun tip or no.

 

[Ron Obvious]

Also, It's "trans man" and "trans woman" not "transman" and "transwoman", but I guess the usual suspects are going to ignore that, too.

Of all the things to get upset about. Neither transman nor "transwoman" are in my spellchecker for the record.

 

[d4m10n]

Once again, they're not "preferred" pronouns, they're just pronouns. They're not a "preference" that can be ignored. A pronoun is either the right one, or the wrong one.

According to my (hardcover) dictionary, what makes a pronoun right or wrong is sex at birth. This is why our Shih Tzu is "she," but our Yorkshire Terrier is "he" whenever we talk about them at home or at the veterinarian's office.

 

[thaiboxerken]

It's nice when bigots start threads that bring all the other bigots out into the sunlight.

 

[d4m10n]

It's nice when people make arguments instead of going to the man.

 

[Trausti]

I guarantee that you (and Ron) have seen a trans person in public and not known that they are trans.

Ugh. A trans person has to do quite a lot to try to fool people about who they really are. An actual women doesn't have to do anything to be seen as a women.

 

[Roboramma]

You think? That's cute.

I think you and Ron are probably thinking about the question differently (in this case what I think is your view of the question is right, though I'm not sure about your conclusion because you haven't stated it precisely).

I think Ron's 99% is meant to be something like: "Take a random sample of people and spend a minute or two with each one, then identify their sex", and he thinks he'll be right 99+% of the time.

But it's not actually the meaningful question related to pronoun use that I think you pose: instead, when he's faced with someone whose pronoun seems to be in opposition to their biological sex, he's not taking someone from a random sample of the population. The analogous test to the first one is you start with a random sample, you identify each person's sex, and based on that predict their pronouns. Then, some of them disagree, saying "I'm a he, not a she" or "I'm a she, not a he". From this group, what proportion can he identify their biological sex? I don't know the answer, but it will be smaller than the first group because we've selected out all the easy cases. And this is clearly the relevant question about pronoun use, because we're talking about which pronouns to use when your initial reaction is in conflict with what the other person wants you to use.