And this shows that gender in French is arbitrary so not similar to gender in humans, which has a highly predictable nature.
I look at la table and le chaise which I always got wrong, but not the gender of the teacher at the front of the classroom.
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"Misgendering" is now a federal offense
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I look at la table and le chaise which I always got wrong, but not the gender of the teacher at the front of the classroom.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Wrong! Pronouns have always denoted biological sex, for pretty much the last thousand years of recorded history. It is only very recently in historical terms that gender and sex have been separated to mean different things...
HINT: There was no self-ID by men who want to be women in the 15th century. When you were referring to a person as "she" you were ALWAYS referring to a female.
Utter crap!
French is not English. In French EVERYTHING is gendered (and that gendering is totally arbitrary) because that is how their ******* language works! Furthermore animals have a gender regardless of their sex. For example "The Cat" in French is "Le Chat" ("Le" denotes male) and even if it is a female cat, it is still "Le Chat"
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Thermal
August Member
So you believe. But as others have said here, it's damn near guaranteed you clock someone wrong once in a while.
Say you see someone you entirely believe to be a woman by their appearances. It happens. Hell, I know I've guessed wrong on occasion. Then they say "nah, I'm a guy". Assume no genital inspections for the moment. Do you continue to call them a woman, because that's what you have chosen to identify them as, or do you take their word for what they are?
But that's not even the point: smartcooky says he chooses how to use his descriptors. I'll bet he does exactly what he is told when it comes to languages, no matter what it seems to him. He has also said that at a certain degree of convincing appearance, he ignores the biological fact he so champions. So I find very little about his own usage consistent. I mean, he blatantly said that the trans woman is a "he" till he cuts his Johnson off. Because to him, a dick is what makes a man, not the biological reality of their DNA.
But you are associating French where there are no clues with the inanimate objects, with humans where errors are extremely rare in everyday life.
Not like with like.
Thermal
August Member
A thousand years ago we were ******** on buckets and owning slaves, too. Newsflash: we're not living a thousand years ago. I said in the last few generations, and meant in the last few generations. That's an adequate range for our ******* lifetimes.
Yes, I know. We all know. Thanks.
But at least you clarified one point: you don't care about this gender standard you have unless you can insult people with it. Ok. But don't say you rely on science and biological reality as long as you say a guy who cuts his junk off is no longer biologically male. A human being is more than their genitalia, and I'm frankly surprised to have to say that.
Thermal
August Member
The point was simply whether you choose gender yourself, or take the cue from others, whether in language or with people. If you only reserve your personal take on gendering for when you can hurt others with it, well...
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arthwollipot
Limerick Purist Pronouns: He/Him
Unfortunately, I'm not.
Trausti
Illuminator
Did the Chinese emperors consider their eunichs to be the same as their female concubines, or just dickless men?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Personal pronouns have never referred to gender before the relatively recent fad started by gender activists to use them for the benefit of transgender people. Take a look at this copy I took from page 441 of the 1982 OED - the meaning of the word "Gender". I left in the words before and after "gender" so you can't claim I cropped anything out.
Please note: The ONLY meaning of gender, at least as recently as 1982, was to do with the concepts of masculine and feminine in language - as it says "Grammatical Classification"*. There is no mention of gender having anything to do with human social constructs. There is also no mention of personal pronouns!
Therefore your assertion that personal pronouns have have always referred to gender is complete bollocks. It has in fact never been the case.
* I'll have more to say about this later.
Now take a look at this copy I took from page 1043 of the 1982 OED - the meaning of the word "Sex". Again I left in the words before and after "sex" so you can't claim I cropped anything out.
Notice what you don't see in there? That's right, the word "gender" because as I said earlier, gender was exclusively used as a grammatical classification in language.
So what have personal pronouns referred to in the past now that we know for a fact that they did not refer to gender. Of course, they referred to biological sex.
Now take a look at this copy I took from pages 494 and 1048 of the 1982 OED - the meaning of the words "He" (left) and "She" (right). I left in the words before and after "he" so you can't claim I cropped anything out, but I couldn't do that with "she" as its at the bottom of the page. Happy to share the whole page if you doubt me.
The personal pronouns he/him have always referred to males, and the personal pronouns she/her have always referred to females. This is likely due to the fact that millions of years of evolution instilled in us the ability to see and identify the sex of another human with stunning accuracy (better than 99.5% of the time). The fact that we might occasionally "clock one wrong" is totally ******* irrelevant to the issue at hand.
The personal pronouns they/them refer to groups or to people whose sex we don’t know. Applying these personal pronouns to individual people whose sex we can see and identify is utterly stupid, and is introducing pointless confusion to both language and society.
* Now to debunk your completely nonsense claim that the use of masculine and feminine in language is somehow indicative of personal pronouns referring to gender.
In French, "la" (feminine) and "le" (masculine) are direct object pronouns, NOT personal pronouns - which are "il/lui" (he/him) and "elle/son" (she/her).
he is American (il est américain)
she is American (elle est américaine)
her name is Nicole (nom son est Nicole)
his name is Michel (nom lui est Michel)
The French would never say "Le est americain", or La nom est Nicole"
I have said no such thing. Your characterization of what is said is both willfully dishonest and grossly rude.
Let me state this as clearly as I can so that there can be no confusion. I have ZERO problem in accepting trans-gender people for who they are. Like everyone else, they have the absolute, inalienable human right to exist, to be who they are, to live the lifestyle they choose, to love who they love, to wear whatever they want, to marry or live with whoever they want. These ARE their rights. But I draw the line at denial of objective, scientific fact. Transwomen ARE biological males.
However, ANY line drawn can have exceptions. I CHOOSE personally, to make a exception for transgender people who have shown a commitment to what they truly believe by undergoing surgery to remove their sex organs, thereby cutting off their way back. I will make no such exception for those who have used Self-ID by fiat such that it would allow then right of access to female only spaces such as toilets, changing rooms, spas, women's shelters, rape crisis centres and in the case of criminals, fenos and other offenders, women's prisons. I will also make no such exception for people like Will Thomson who pull the Self-ID stunt to get access to women's sports competitions. **** them - I'm not going along with it.
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angrysoba
Philosophile
I’m pointing out that Rebel News is, contrary to your claims, right-wing.
I don’t make any claim other than that.
angrysoba
Philosophile
I don’t think that is strictly true. There have been ships that take female pronouns and various other inanimate objects.
jt512
Philosopher
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Basically, objects that were romanticized or poeticized to have male or female character, or "personified," as per the OED snippet in smartcocky's post.
angrysoba
Philosophile
Indeed. The OED contradicts the claims that it only refers to biological sex.
jt512
Philosopher
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No. Pronouns still refered to biological sex per the OED. It's the ship, the sea, the moon, etc. that were thought of as having human female character.
angrysoba
Philosophile
Ah! The ship had tits, vag, XX chromosomes and a uterus. TIL!
Language and culture change, the young bring the changes - older folk have always struggled with this simple fact.
angrysoba
Philosophile
Thinking about it a bit more, there was also a vogue for using the "generic he" which meant a person whose biological sex was not specified. Certain prescriptivists insisted on its use instead of using the singular "they" which they considered to be abominations of language.
Link
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Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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True but entirely irrelevant.
Thermal
August Member
Factually false. The concept of gender as distinct from biological sex goes back till at least the 1960s, and used by scientists, social and otherwise.
Have a gander at this chart showing the use of the term "gender" in the English language. You'll note it starts to skyrocket up in usage right around the time your cherished (and somewhat obselete) Oxford was printed.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=gender
Great. And let's look at the first hit for the 21st century's definition of "gender". Comes from that newfangled interwebs, there, Jehosephat. Oh look, it is cited from Oxford Languages:
Oxford Languages said:
Says it all, out here in the 21st century. Please harumph while adjusting the onion on your belt.
That you have to dial the clock back over 40 years makes my point for me. You think you're going to find relevant definitions for smartphones or the World Wide Web in that 1982 dictionary, ducky?
Conceded. You are likely not doing it specifically to be rude. You're just being dishonest, or you don't see the glaring flaws in your justification. Since you keep taking the extra time to snip out my DNA observation, we'll go over it again below.
And the line you are drawing is absolutely, 100% NOT on the scientific, biological sex line. It is absolutely, 100% at the point of convincing presentation, ignoring the scientific, biological fact in its entirety.
Put it to the real world test; you see a trans woman. Looks like a woman, in terms of dress and boobs (that you can't tell are real or implants or a stuffed bra). How do you address them? He or she? Do you demand a genital inspection, or give them a questionnaire about their reconstructive surgeries, presumably demanding evidence?
The scientific, biological reality is their DNA, not having a dick or not. THAT'S the hard scientific line. But you draw the line at their convincing presentation, by your own words.
And as I've said earlier, I don't even disagree with you. But you don't care a whit about the only relevant, scientific, biological fact : their genetic makeup. You care, by your own description, about a convincing presentation. Myself and others also weigh presentation heavily, but we are not requiring them to drop trou before we call them a "she". If they can't afford, or have not yet reached the point of the slice and dice, that's okay with me. As I said earlier with "Babette", it took me a while to not see a man in a dress. But I fully acknowledged her as a legitimate woman before she even got her implants (and no, I've never even asked if she got the Johnson cut off, because it seriously doesn't matter. I'm sure she did if she could afford it, but it is not the "line drawn" of her sincerity. She already demonstrates that.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Pretty sure the youth aren't writing Mt. Holyoke policy, though they may be making demands.
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