Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[John Freestone]

@John Freestone

I'm going to try to address the four definitions in order, which will require a bit of cutting and pasting.


If @p0lka thinks it is a bad idea to use "gender" as "just another word for sex" then I am compelled to agree. These issues are confusing enough without conflating those two concepts as well.

Depending on the alternative suggested, yes, I agree too. p0lka means, "...therefore, keep using 'gender' to mean...[a range of confusing other things, some apparently mutually exclusive]." I mean, ...

Cemtex is incredibly useful (when employed as intended) and unlike "gender" it tends to do just one thing well.

... that it has become so distorted and abused ('cemtex' was to mean socially/cognitively 'incendiary') that I choose to avoid using it even as a substitute for 'sex'. I would recommend that approach; I'm not suggesting we protest outside the offices of dictionary publishers until they remove it.

Hard disagree. Sometimes it is okay to tell individuals (such as Lia Thomas) that they need to stay in their swim lane based on sex.

OK, so it looks like 'projected onto individuals' meant 'enforced', and that the act of making those rules, or having those expectations of people comes under your third definition of 'gender'. The outcome I agree with (as I hope I've made clear plenty of times already here), but for me it's simple enough to understand these rules as sex-based, and skip the middle bit. Sex -> gender -> separation. Why should keeping particular spaces and activities separate for the sexes anything to do with 'gender'? (Maybe I've misunderstood, and look forward to clarification.)

You may be right, but I remain undecided on this point. Most people who used to be boys know what it is like to impatiently wish to be men, even though they now know (looking back) that they had an imperfect idea of what manhood would entail. Possibly this is what it is like to be a trans man? I've no idea, but I suspect it's probably more than just asking yourself which social stereotypes one might hope to fulfill.

My ideas about what it would be like to be a man (in my case, mostly fearful thoughts rather than impatience) were just that: ideas, imaginary. Now, you might say I had a better idea of what it would be like to be a man than I did of what it would be like to be a woman, but if you consider why, I think you'll have to conclude that it was down to physical characteristics (some of that I did look forward to!) or social stereotypes (the bit I feared, although mostly that was just about being an adult, and I recognised men had to be more 'adult' than women back in the '60s - relatively few women had bank accounts, owned property, or even went to work, the lucky freeloaders!).

I'm not saying nobody can imagine what it's like to be the opposite sex. We can imagine what it's like to be a horse or a banana. We just can't go from that to anything ontological - "I feel like a horse, therefore I am a horse" - nor is there any benefit in reifying this imaginary realm into 'gender' IMHO. Actually, people have a similar concept for their species, their 'spirit animal'. I'm an atheist about gods, spirit animals, and gender. I'm not denying any of these as concepts, they're just not ontological, objective realities, AFAICS, nor are they helpful; in fact, they are damaging because people believe they are objective realities.

 

[p0lka]

Fair points. I was aware it was difficult to form my words carefully enough. I was responding to p0lka, and that is key to my answer. The points p0lka made over the short time I've been on the thread were all over the place on these definitions - or the last three, at least. So I was trying to cover several bases undermining the idea altogether. Maybe that's not the best way to go about it, but I wasn't so much trying to make a rational argument as an emotional appeal, in the hope that whatever cognitive blockage p0lka has might get looser.

The only definition p0lka rejects, AFAICS, is (1), by insisting on his 'male' and 'female' terms as the only thing that matters (there I am interpreting the definition, but it seems to be a reasonable interpretation of the basics: "gender is just another word for sex"). To p0lka, apparently, that's not true. Sex is fixed, they say, but you can slip genders on for the day.

(4) is a phantasm. "Feeling like" people of a particular sex can only mean one of two things. The psychological meaning of "feeling" that the TRAs mean is just a cognitive judgement based on (2) or (3) or both. They compare themselves with sexual stereotypes and try to place themselves on a gender spectrum (or binary, trinary? or other made up scheme) accordingly. It is not possible to have an experience of what anyone other than oneself experiences, so as pure "feeling what it's like", it's meaningless guff. And, of course, the physical interpretation hardly needs more analysis. I "feel like a man" physically, because I have a man's body, and that's true whatever my body might be like (knowing, as I do, the proper definition of maleness). To be even clearer, I don't have an experience of 'maleness' because I'm male. I just experience me, and know that's what I am. Similarly, we don't experience the plumbing of our arteries, our eye colour, or our chromosomes.

(2) is a mere observation of tendencies, if I've understood it. So if that's how you want to define 'gender', I guess my only objection is that the word is now cemtex and best avoided at all costs. Obviously, males and females tend to express particular stereotypes socially, just as we do physically. I agree with p0lka on the point that the problem is when these are 'indoctrinated', when the expectation that we follow them is too great, or perhaps when it exists at all. Further, obviously physical reality makes some of these impossible (e.g. pregnancy), or hard to overcome, and, as your last paragraph suggests, the sexes have different needs that a sane society should take seriously, and preferably work out democratically and through discussion.

I'm not quite sure what is meant by (3), particularly in the words 'projected onto individuals'. If it means 'enforced' or 'coerced', sure that should go. It's real, and it should be avoided. If it means 'assumed' or 'expected' - in other words, when we make judgements about people's abilities or needs - then we all do that from time to time, and can be forgiven. "Hell, that's a freaking strong spring on that door - shall I hold it open for this short, wiry girl, or let it slam in her face?"

2 and 3 are maybe points in a loop - we observe that the sexes are different, and then we naturally expect individuals to be like the types we've observed.

Sorry that took so long to say.

I looked at d4m10n's 4 points,

point 1. describes how it is used nowadays, I think it might have to change.

point 2 and point 3 are the same thing, which is social roles based on sex being projected on to people. Some people don't accept the social role and some people do but choose the other social role. But it is social roles.

point 4. If someone has been indoctrinated enough by the cultural/social environment that they find themselves in, then it would be inevitable to end up feeling like a gender of some sort as that's what society pressure does.

 

[d4m10n]

The outcome I agree with (as I hope I've made clear plenty of times already here), but for me it's simple enough to understand these rules as sex-based, and skip the middle bit. Sex -> gender -> separation.

We may elide over the middle bit, but by assigning distinct roles based on sex (e.g. softball leagues & locker rooms for girls not boys) we have perpetrated gender₃ even if we choose to refrain from labeling it as such. Sexed roles are simply what the word means when used in this third sense.

Why should keeping particular spaces and activities separate for the sexes anything to do with 'gender'?

Let me back up just a bit to explain my thinking on this. I'd argue that gender₂ and gender₃ are almost invariably intertwined because people first observe patterns of sexed behavior (sense 2) and later they tend to socially (or sometimes legally) enforce and perpetuate those patterns (sense 3) unless they've been raised by hardcore feminists who've taught them to observe and subvert rather than follow the usual pattern by which social norms are perpetuated down the generations.

To take a relatively benign example, the haircut I'm sporting in my current profile photo is easy to get at my local barbershop for men—no questions asked nor eyebrows raised. If my wife went in to her stylist (Jana) and asked for the same cut, Jana would text the ladies' group chat to come help my wife work through whatever stressful events somehow had led her to this unusual decision. Shaving one's pate is unnatural for men and women, but only one of the two sexes is generally expected to keep a full head of beautiful hair at all times. That's both gender₂ in the sense that we interpret hairstyles as somehow signaling masculinity or femininity, but it's also gender₃ in the sense that we reinforce these sexed stereotypes by treating men and women differently (e.g. basic trainees get their heads shorn completely if they are male, cut short if they are female).

Okay, back to your question. Keeping activities separate by sex (such as the softball/baseball distinction) is gender₂ when we think of one as feminine "for girls" and the other as masculine "for boys" and it is gender₃ when we enforce those sexed social roles (e.g. only natal females are allowed to compete in many softball tournaments). This is true even when the competitions look practically the same—aside from considerations of strength and speed—as in rugby, or when the facilities offered are practically identical.

One way to feel the full force of gender₃ in everyday life is to try to violate the norms of sexed spaces in situations where an act utilitarian wouldn't see any real downside. For example, one of my favorite old Italian places has two one-toilet bathrooms which cannot practically serve more than one adult at a time. They could have decorated them identically and slapped some unisex signage on them, but instead they decorated them quite differently and assigned one to men and one to women. This results in the usual stupid inefficiencies; it isn't remotely uncommon to see a female patron waiting for the women's bathroom while the men's is clearly available and directly across the hallway. All she has to do is ignore the prevailing social norm and step into the men's room! Aside from having to tolerate a fair bit of heteronormative pin-up art, she will find herself none the worse for wear (unless she was hoping to dispose of feminine hygiene products in one of those little metal bins, but let's put that scenario aside for the moment). The reverse situation is observed less frequently, but I've occasionally felt compelled to wait uncomfortably on the men's room because I was unwilling to use the women's, even though the door was ajar and the light off. Behold, the power of gender₃!

To bring this back to main stream of this thread, I'd argue that at least part of the reason why we find ourselves faced with people like Merager hanging dong in the company of nonconsenting women and girls and people like Yaniv suing estheticians for refusing to handle her feminine testicles is that we've significantly weakened gender₃ by muddling minds with the core ideas of gender ideology.

 

[d4m10n]

point 2 and point 3 are the same thing, which is social roles based on sex being projected on to people.

Please see my previous post explaining how they are distinct but related.

ETA: There is a good discussion of the differences between gender₃ and gender₄ on this blog.

 

[Thermal]

When we talk about mice, I don't recall such heated defining over whether we mean a small rodent or a computer accessory.

Definition 4 is the applicable one in the meta debate. The others, while having a bunch of intersectionality with it, are not the issue.

 

[Thermal]

At the federal level, to take one obvious example, we have men's barracks and women's barracks and sex segregation is quite easily enforceable in that environment. No idea why you would claim this sort of thing never happens, I could probably come up with a dozen examples without ever leaving the base.

You seem to be referring to the military (barracks, base). The military is a dramatic exception to civilian rights and quelling of individualism and freedoms. The average soldier would be considered a victim of domestic abuse living under military conditions, and their superiors guilty of a variety of crimes and human rights violations. Not comparable.

At the state level, it depends on whether you live in a place like NJ which has banned sex segregation in favor of sorting by self-identification or a place like OK which has mandated sex segregation in certain settings.

Which I already qualified.

 

[Thermal]

To take a relatively benign example, the haircut I'm sporting in my current profile photo is easy to get at my local barbershop for men—no questions asked nor eyebrows raised. If my wife went in to her stylist (Jana) and asked for the same cut, Jana would text the ladies' group chat to come help my wife work through whatever stressful events somehow had led her to this unusual decision. Shaving one's pate is unnatural for men and women, but only one of the two sexes is generally expected to keep a full head of beautiful hair at all times. That's both gender₂ in the sense that we interpret hairstyles as somehow signaling masculinity or femininity, but it's also gender₃ in the sense that we reinforce these sexed stereotypes by treating men and women differently (e.g. basic trainees get their heads shorn completely if they are male, cut short if they are female).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1991692394765643832

 

[d4m10n]

Not sure exactly what you're getting at here @Thermal but my guess is that you think Buck is standing athwart the usual gender norms regarding hair?

 

[Thermal]

Not sure exactly what you're getting at here @Thermal but my guess is that you think Buck is standing athwart the usual gender norms regarding hair?

Nah, just thought his pic next to your avatar was eerie and forgot to comment till you mentioned your hairstyle.

 

[d4m10n]

Definition 4 is the applicable one in the meta debate.

If you mean it's the only one applicable, I have to disagree. The shift from gender₃ to gender₄ is also the shift from second- to third-wave feminism, from examining systems of patriarchal oppression sustained by gendered social roles to focusing on individual self-expression of one's innermost gender essence. We're in this mess in part because feminists took their eyes off the ball when they transitioned from women's studies to gender studies at the university level.

 

[p0lka]

Noooooo!!!!
It - 'gender' - as a concept, relies on sex. The sexes are what it is parallel to, what defines it, that's all. It's not parallel to "the colour of wallpaper", or "the weight of a pint of milk" - it refers to sex, but refuses to be the same thing.

I think it became a thing the moment someone said 'why should I do that just because I'm female?'.

I don't think you're very good at linguistic analysis.

fair enuff, it's an opinion.

There was literally NO problem - there CAN BE no problem with equating "gender" and "sex". We have two words. They are equated. They therefore MEAN EXACTLY THE SAME THING. There can't be any problem from that, and there really wasn't. In certain quarters, saying the word "sex" was thought rude, and people started calling the condition of being male or female one's "gender". Just a different word. No problem. Unless you conflate one of those words with something else, they mean the same thing.

stating thing with capital letters does not make it correct.

Conversely, what causes the problem is treating them as DIFFERENT, because then "gender" has to acquire its own meaning. That then reifies it, allowing people to demand theirs is different from their sex./

It's already happened, I'm trying to solve it.

This is all so ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ obvious, it's infuriating you keep wanting 'gender' to be different from 'sex', and then demand we get rid of the gendered words on toilets (as you imagine them to be) and use sex-based ones instead! By requiring it to be different, you make it real, when it's just a vague cloud of typical behaviours and appearances that we observe OF THE SEXES.

Can you tell me, without referring to the sexes, what gender is?

Can you answer the question I asked when replying to one of your posts? the below post.

snip .. It's right what's being told to you about the militant end of the movement, they don't care about your labels on toilet doors, but on the victim end too, people, kids, think they are a particular gender (by which they literally mean sex) on the basis of what they like and don't like.

My question in reference to the red and underlined was and still is, 'wouldn't gender being separate from sex solve that particular problem?'.

 

[Thermal]

If you mean it's the only one applicable, I have to disagree. The shift from gender₃ to gender₄ is also the shift from second- to third-wave feminism, from examining systems of patriarchal oppression sustained by gendered social roles to focusing on individual self-expression of one's innermost gender essence.

Again, the only shift is in popular thinking coming to grips with the decades-old academic usage, given rocket propulsion with the rise of the web. Gender as a 4th definition concept has been well established going back to the 1940s, with gender being the socialized obverse of sex. It's not new, except in popular thinking. My psychologist bride was well acquainted with the distinction at the tail end of the last century.

 

[p0lka]

It always was, before the transgender madness arrived.

In fact, I'd argue that it was the separation of what was once two words that mean the same thing, into two words that some have attempted to make mean different things, that allowed this fad to spread in the first place.

Maybe it was people seeking a word that could express how they felt about being told to fit in to the sex roles, and that's the one?

 

[Ziggurat]

Gender as a 4th definition concept has been well established going back to the 1940s,

Nope. "Gender role" was coined in 1955 by John Money. "Gender identity" (the 4th definition) didn't appear until 1963.

These are not the first bad ideas that the academic establishment has foisted upon the general public.

 

[Thermal]

Nope. "Gender role" was coined in 1955 by John Money. "Gender identity" (the 4th definition) didn't appear until 1963.

These are not the first bad ideas that the academic establishment has foisted upon the general public.

I didn't say gender role or identity. I said gender as a unique idea distinct and not synonymous with sex.

ETA: gender not being synonymous with sex was the point I was arguing

 

[Ziggurat]

I didn't say gender role or identity. I said gender as a unique idea distinct and not synonymous with sex.

No you didn't. You said gender as definition 4, which isn't merely something distinct from sex, but something different from sex in a very particular way.

ETA: gender not being synonymous with sex was the point I was arguing

Definitions 2-4 are all not synonymous with sex. You didn't say definitions 2-4. You said definition 4.

You are bad at communicating.

 

[Thermal]

No you didn't. You said gender as definition 4, which isn't merely something distinct from sex, but something different from sex in a very particular way.

Definitions 2-4 are all not synonymous with sex. You didn't say definitions 2-4. You said definition 4.

I did. Because it is the only one of any relevance to the debate, and trying to squeeze in def 1 is pointless evasion.

You are bad at communicating.

You are a petty contrarian.

 

[Ziggurat]

I did. Because it is the only one of any relevance to the debate

I don't disagree with that, but if you're talking about definition 4, then talk about definition 4. You claimed you were talking about definition 4, but when I pointed out that you were wrong about definition 4, you appealed to definitions 2 and 3 in order to try to be right.

, and trying to squeeze in def 1 is pointless evasion.

I'm not trying to squeeze in definition 1. You are trying to squeeze in definitions 2 and 3 to defend your claim about definition 4.

You are a petty contrarian.

You are still bad at communication. And the difference between 4 and 2+3 is important in this context.

 

[lobosrul5]

To take a relatively benign example, the haircut I'm sporting in my current profile photo is easy to get at my local barbershop for men—no questions asked nor eyebrows raised. If my wife went in to her stylist (Jana) and asked for the same cut, Jana would text the ladies' group chat to come help my wife work through whatever stressful events somehow had led her to this unusual decision. Shaving one's pate is unnatural for men and women, but only one of the two sexes is generally expected to keep a full head of beautiful hair at all times. That's both gender₂ in the sense that we interpret hairstyles as somehow signaling masculinity or femininity, but it's also gender₃ in the sense that we reinforce these sexed stereotypes by treating men and women differently (e.g. basic trainees get their heads shorn completely if they are male, cut short if they are female).

OK, but if she went into the barbershop I frequent, and asked for a short haircut they'd comply probably without much in the way of comment. While it caters mostly to men, I have seen a lady or two, presumably lesbians, getting "guy" style haircuts. No one would bat an eye if they played on a womens softball team.

 

[Ziggurat]

To take a relatively benign example, the haircut I'm sporting in my current profile photo is easy to get at my local barbershop for men—no questions asked nor eyebrows raised. If my wife went in to her stylist (Jana) and asked for the same cut, Jana would text the ladies' group chat to come help my wife work through whatever stressful events somehow had led her to this unusual decision. Shaving one's pate is unnatural for men and women, but only one of the two sexes is generally expected to keep a full head of beautiful hair at all times.

Shaving your head may be unnatural, but going bald isn't. You personally might have to shave to get that look, but some men get something pretty close to it naturally. But it is exceptionally rare for women to go completely bald naturally, especially if it's not from some serious health problem.

That's both gender₂ in the sense that we interpret hairstyles as somehow signaling masculinity or femininity, but it's also gender₃ in the sense that we reinforce these sexed stereotypes by treating men and women differently (e.g. basic trainees get their heads shorn completely if they are male, cut short if they are female).

Natural baldness in men doesn't signify anything other than age (men generally don't go bald naturally at 20). Natural baldness in women indicates poor health. Social expectations develop around these biological realities. You can call this gender if you like, but it has its roots in biological differences between men and women, it's not an arbitrary social construct.