Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[UnrepentantSinner]

That would suggest that transgendered people are abnormal.

And? Have we come so far with political correctness that we're going to allow accurate words to be off limits? Maybe it time we take back words that have taken on certain connotations and make sure they are used accurately, appropriately and in a proper context. Gender dysmorphia is not the norm. It also already has an appellation - transgendered. Why do we need to make up a term for what is, accurately, appropriately and in a proper context when it comes to gender identity and expression, normal?

Bigot.

Atheism + forum is that a way. -------------->

 

[squealpiggy]

why not? It can be useful for clarifying terms. You may as well argue that as we have the word homosexual we have no need for the word heterosexual.

I think it's particularly odd in the context of privilege. Claiming being "cisgendered" to be a privilege is stating that you have a privilege shared with 99.98% of males and 99.99% of females. Which doesn't sound altogether that privileged. I think that when you're talking in those kind of numbers it isn't really useful to talk in terms of privilege and start talking about the disadvantage of belonging to such a tiny minority.

I agree that it may be useful to have a term referring to transgender or trans-sex people in the context of a discussion about and from the point of view of trans-sexualism and transgender issues. But A-plus tends to affix the label in all conversations as though not being transgender makes a blind bit of difference in virtually any societal interaction!

I do notice that the prevalence of trans people on A-plus seems to be about 75% though so maybe it's more of an issue. Or maybe it's a more-oppressed-than-thou version of the internet message board phenomenon that sees every participant as a 6'2 220 lb cage fighter who dates supermodels and drives a Porsche.

 

[ponderingturtle]

We have male and female...doesn't that cover it?

Only if you are excluding transmen from male and transwomen from female. So in doing so it is a clear rejection of their transition and refusal to recognize their desired gender.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Ah, you think we should move to E/Z-racial and E/Z-ethnic terminology?

... e/z?

 

[brodski]

I think it's particularly odd in the context of privilege. Claiming being "cisgendered" to be a privilege is stating that you have a privilege shared with 99.98% of males and 99.99% of females. Which doesn't sound altogether that privileged. I think that when you're talking in those kind of numbers it isn't really useful to talk in terms of privilege and start talking about the disadvantage of belonging to such a tiny minority.

I understand your point, and agree with it to some extent. However the point of talking in terms of privilege rather than disadvantage is that it is an attempt to identify and change the attitudes and behavior of the majority group, and not focus on the minority group having to conform in order to be accepted. Or it's a handy way of shutting up your critics and justifying ignoring any opinions which may challenge your sense of righteous indignation.

On the A+ forum (and much of the internet in general) talk of privilege does tend to be used the way a drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination.

 

[brodski]

... e/z?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Z_notation

one for the chemists.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

I think it's particularly odd in the context of privilege. Claiming being "cisgendered" to be a privilege is stating that you have a privilege shared with 99.98% of males and 99.99% of females. Which doesn't sound altogether that privileged. I think that when you're talking in those kind of numbers it isn't really useful to talk in terms of privilege and start talking about the disadvantage of belonging to such a tiny minority.

I agree that it may be useful to have a term referring to transgender or trans-sex people in the context of a discussion about and from the point of view of trans-sexualism and transgender issues. But A-plus tends to affix the label in all conversations as though not being transgender makes a blind bit of difference in virtually any societal interaction!

I do notice that the prevalence of trans people on A-plus seems to be about 75% though so maybe it's more of an issue. Or maybe it's a more-oppressed-than-thou version of the internet message board phenomenon that sees every participant as a 6'2 220 lb cage fighter who dates supermodels and drives a Porsche.

Probably the prevalence.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

why not? It can be useful for clarifying terms. You may as well argue that as we have the word homosexual we have no need for the word heterosexual.

Those words existed long ago. We're talking here about making up a word. I'm not in favor of bogus verbiage.

how does that work with other majority groups?

No need for the word "heterosexual" just "normal", no need for the word "white" just "normal", no need for the word Christian (in the USA) just "normal", no need for the word "woman" just "normal"...

- Homosexual already exists and has existed (possibly) for centuries.
- Your privilage is showing whites are only majorities in couple dozen counties. But, as with homosexual, there are already words that exist to serve as appellations of races (generically) or ethnicities.
- There already are appellations for those members not only of religions (Hindus, Jains, Scientologists, you might have heard of them), but for those who have no religion (atheist and agnostic*).
- We have the words men, women and transgender. Why do normal men and women need a collective appellation when one already exists - normal?

* I can see what's coming.

No, cis and trans are subcategories of male and female which may be important in some contexts.

It'll be a cold day in Robot Hell before I use a term made up on Usenet.

 

[brodski]

And? Have we come so far with political correctness that we're going to allow accurate words to be off limits? Maybe it time we take back words that have taken on certain connotations and make sure they are used accurately, appropriately and in a proper context. Gender dysmorphia is not the norm. It also already has an appellation - transgendered. Why do we need to make up a term for what is, accurately, appropriately and in a proper context when it comes to gender identity and expression, normal?

Again, I ask, do not all these things apply to the terms hetro- and homosexual?

If we take the word "normal" to mean" common" rather than with it's more negative connotations, there are a whole host of quite unremarkable words which we could do without. What makes "cisgendered" different?

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Those words existed long ago. We're talking here about making up a word. I'm not in favor of bogus verbiage.



- Homosexual already exists and has existed (possibly) for centuries.
- Your privilage is showing whites are only majorities in couple dozen counties. But, as with homosexual, there are already words that exist to serve as appellations of races (generically) or ethnicities.
- There already are appellations for those members not only of religions (Hindus, Jains, Scientologists, you might have heard of them), but for those who have no religion (atheist and agnostic*).
- We have the words men, women and transgender. Why do normal men and women need a collective appellation when one already exists - normal?

* I can see what's coming.



It'll be a cold day in Robot Hell before I use a term made up on Usenet.

Cisgender is an academic term. Also cis/gender so not that made up.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I think it's particularly odd in the context of privilege. Claiming being "cisgendered" to be a privilege is stating that you have a privilege shared with 99.98% of males and 99.99% of females. Which doesn't sound altogether that privileged. I think that when you're talking in those kind of numbers it isn't really useful to talk in terms of privilege and start talking about the disadvantage of belonging to such a tiny minority.

That is the problem of looking at discrimination through a lens of privilege. There is lot of transphobia and discrimination, you show it yourself by looking at abnormal by your language.

I agree that it may be useful to have a term referring to transgender or trans-sex people in the context of a discussion about and from the point of view of trans-sexualism and transgender issues. But A-plus tends to affix the label in all conversations as though not being transgender makes a blind bit of difference in virtually any societal interaction!

So they are dumbasses. It does not mean that the term isn't valid when non asshats use it.

I do notice that the prevalence of trans people on A-plus seems to be about 75% though so maybe it's more of an issue. Or maybe it's a more-oppressed-than-thou version of the internet message board phenomenon that sees every participant as a 6'2 220 lb cage fighter who dates supermodels and drives a Porsche.

Well there are a lot more transpeople that you are citing in that statistic, though. Those numbers are based off of the number of surgeries done, not based off of surveying people who do not feel fully comfortable with identifying with the assigned gender of their birth but either lack the resources or do not feel the need for surgical correction of it.

So to quote the APA

"It is difficult to accurately estimate the number of transgender people, mostly because there are no population studies that accurately and completely account for the range of gender identity and gender expression"

For example I have a friend who is physicially male but whos gender identity is neuter. Having a penis bothers him, but he also likes sex. So is he cisgendered or not?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Again, I ask, do not all these things apply to the terms hetro- and homosexual?

If we take the nord "normal" to mean" common" rather than with it's more negative connotations, there are a whole host of quite unremarkable words which we could do without. What makes "cisgendered" different?

He just hates learning new words like blueray, quantum or african american when there are enough perfectly serviceable words already.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Huh, first cropped up in Usenet. Learn new things everyday.

 

[brodski]

Those words existed long ago. We're talking here about making up a word. I'm not in favor of bogus verbiage.

all words are made up, cisgendered has a much better pedigree than mongrel words like "television", it's older than mainstream words like "blog". Linguistically there is nothing to object to.

- Homosexual already exists and has existed (possibly) for centuries.

so have transgender people.

- Your privilage is showing whites are only majorities in couple dozen counties. But, as with homosexual, there are already words that exist to serve as appellations of races (generically) or ethnicities.
- There already are appellations for those members not only of religions (Hindus, Jains, Scientologists, you might have heard of them), but for those who have no religion (atheist and agnostic*).

but why do we need appaltions for the majority, why not just use the word normal? I because sometimes it's useful to talk specifiably about some groups even though they could also be defined as "normal".

- We have the words men, women and transgender. Why do normal men and women need a collective appellation when one already exists - normal?

so you believe that trans-gender people are neither men nor women? or do they each have a gender in which case why do we need the terms trans?

It'll be a cold day in Robot Hell before I use a term made up on Usenet.

So you've never called anyone a troll? The use of the term has spread far wider than the internet, etymological is frankly ridiculousness.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

No, cis and trans are subcategories of male and female which may be important in some contexts.

Is it important? I have no horse in the race, so whatever word people choose doesn't really bother me but either trans is a different gender (in which case they can be different) or they want to be considered their desired gender in which case male and female cover it.

If there are important contexts then trans-male/trans-female would surely cover it for that context?

Only if you are excluding transmen from male and transwomen from female. So in doing so it is a clear rejection of their transition and refusal to recognize their desired gender.

Or including them. I have no problem with whatever people want to call themselves; do we need more words for labelling other people?

 

[brodski]

Is it important? I have no horse in the race, so whatever word people choose doesn't really bother me but either trans is a different gender (in which case they can be different) or they want to be considered their desired gender in which case male and female cover it.

One example of the top of my head, a local counselor in Cambridge who I follow in twitter talks a lot about her trans status. She was tweeting recently about being called by the NHS to arrange cervical smear test. Targeting those test at cissexual women (and transexual men) would make much more sense.

If there are important contexts then trans-male/trans-female would surely cover it for that context?

In much the same way as defining people as homosexual or not homosexual would cover much discussion of sexuality. English is wonderful in that it delights in having vast redundancy of terms and terms which tend to only have a very specialist usage.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Or including them. I have no problem with whatever people want to call themselves; do we need more words for labelling other people?

So if male includes cis and trans men, how do you clearly refer to cis men when you intend to? Saying nontransmen gets to be a mouthful.

You had been clear that you wanted the distinction to be men vs transmen. So clearly transmen are not men in that distinction. You can not then claim the term is inclusive and non specific.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Cisgender is an academic term.

If I were to do a Google Scholar search, what would the ratio be between publications like Journal of the APA and journals/proceedings of gender identity/studies echo chambers?

Also cis/gender so not that made up.

It's a completely fabricated neologism/portmanteau and more importantly an entirely unnecessary one at that.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

So if male includes cis and trans men, how do you clearly refer to cis men when you intend to? Saying nontransmen gets to be a mouthful.

You had been clear that you wanted the distinction to be men vs transmen. So clearly transmen are not men in that distinction. You can not then claim the term is inclusive and non specific.

Well, I'm not sure why or when I would want to refer to cismen specifically. If someone wants to me to call them a man I will, if they want me to call them a woman I will, if they want me to call them an oompaloompa I will.

If there is some need for distinction then I don't see the problem with using trans-man or whatever to identify that distinction.

Maybe I'm just not seeing the issue.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

He just hates learning new words like blueray, quantum or african american when there are enough perfectly serviceable words already.

- Blu-ray^TM is a trademarked product name for a (then) new digital video disk technology. It describes something that did not exist before.
- Quantum was a word coined to describe a newly observed phenomena. There was no word describing it previously as no one was aware of it.
- I rarely use African-American (and try writing it correctly, have some respect) except in the context of proper nouns (Department of African-American Studies, etc.).