Moderated Using wrong pronouns= violence??

[Upchurch]

Yet the claim says,

Also,


That wasn't the claim to which I was offering that study (and the other one, too). My participation in this vein started here:

Emphasis just added.


Etc.

I was paraphrasing.

That doesn’t change that the study doesn’t test the effects of non-gender conforming clues on that accuracy, which is specifically the problem here.

That's not what the original statement about evolution in this thread is about. It was merely that sexual dimorphism probably has an evolutionary component to it.

It’s an analogy.

I’m not claiming that humans aren’t sexually dimorphic, with some fuzziness on the edges. I’m pointing out that just because we don’t currently know of a evolutionary reason for transgenderism, that doesn’t mean there might not be one. After all (here’s the analogy), people made the claim that homosexuality was evolutionarily impossible until evolutionary psychologists found an evolutionary advantage at the community level, rather than at the individual level.

 

[Thermal]

Why does it matter how many aspects of life one can have 100% certainty in?

OK, is this somehow going to tie back to the question on the table? Starting to look a little free floating.

While we have a metric **** ton of issues floating around, the current trending one is that you simply can't identify a person's sex without a strip search or DNA test. It's just an inscrutable mystery when a young lady in a bikini happens by, and you have to ask if they are male or female or some other option which doesn't even exist but when you're chugging along on the imagination train you just cow scoop away inconvenient facts that land on the rails.

So rather than the Socratic back and forth, can we cut to the chase on this puppy? It seems we have Upchurch saying you cannot possibly guess sex, you saying that one shouldn't in order to be polite (although it seems to require being insulting to 99+% of people), and tyr_13 saying you often can guess right but don't kid yourself that you'll be right every time.

You seem to be drifting towards not acknowledging sex at all now? Like, if police are looking for a murderer or lost child, they shouldn't mention the sex of who to be on the lookout for unless that person filled out the questionnaire?

 

[Paul2]

I was paraphrasing.

That doesn’t change that the study doesn’t test the effects of non-gender conforming clues on that accuracy, which is specifically the problem here.

People can visually determine the sex of other people pretty accurately, but not perfectly. Non-gender-conforming clues would be one of the things that would presumably limit that accuracy. Agreed?

It’s an analogy.

I’m not claiming that humans aren’t sexually dimorphic, with some fuzziness on the edges. I’m pointing out that just because we don’t currently know of an evolutionary reason for transgenderism, that doesn’t mean there might not be one. After all (here’s the analogy), people made the claim that homosexuality was evolutionarily impossible until evolutionary psychologists found an evolutionary advantage at the community level, rather than at the individual level.

I get your analogy, and agree there might be an evolutionary explanation for transgenderism (as a biological phenomenon, given the timeframes evolution often works on).

 

[Upchurch]

People can visually determine the sex of other people pretty accurately, but not perfectly. Non-gender-conforming clues would be one of the things that would presumably limit that accuracy. Agreed?

Agreed. That is the whole problem with referencing that study.

They essentially tested the effect of gender-conforming clues against a baseline of no clues at all which you would expect to augment the baseline accuracy. "Is dudebro with a beard, backwards ballcap, and a t-shirt offering mustache rides biologically male? We definitely aren't trying to fool anyone" is probably going to have a fairly obvious effect on the accuracy.

If non-gender-conforming clues didn't greatly effect the accuracy, "passing" wouldn't be a thing. There wouldn't be culture warriors trying to keep "butch" cis-women out of restrooms. Heck, people wouldn't see a thin, long haired guy from the back and mistake them for a woman. All of which happens in the real world.

 

[tyr_13]

To those interested in the paper, this is the way....

https://sci-hub.se/10.1068/p220131

Thanks!

That shows that my sample size hypothesis was also wrong. A bit under 200 was the number of subjects used in photographs. The actual sample size was four groups of twenty, or eighty, EDIT:grads.

Some more interesting data:

Performance was highly accurate (96.0% correct). The majority (3/4) of the errors were made in judging female faces as male: overall accuracy for female faces was 93.8% compared with 98.2% with the male. Clearly, then, the removal of major superficial cues leaves additional information that is sufficient for highly accurate discrimination.

So female faces were more likely to be incorrectly labeled male, which has some implications for the 'trans woman panic'. It means even more cis women would be incorrectly thought of as male, and have male pronouns applied to them, based on this data. As has been said though, this data leaves out things like voice and most cultural gender markers.

Speaking of limitations in the data, eighty grad students from British colleges isn't a good sample size nor a good sample group. The pictures also seem to be all white people too. I'd hypothesize that like all other facial recognition, the error rate would go up if one included ethnic groups one did not grow up around. I've maintained that in places like the US, the inaccurate accusation of 'really being a man' would disproportionately impact black cis women.

I'm going to argue that this study represents the absolute ceiling of accuracy.

EDIT: The subjects of the photos also topped out at thirty years old, another HUGE limitation.

EDIT2: Oh, this footnote is also pretty nice for a study published in 1991.

The task is described here, and in the companion article (Burton et al 1993) as discriminating sex, rather than gender, since the focus is on the classification of the physical pattern of the face into one of two biologically determined categories. We reserve the word gender for studies in which it is the psychological, rather than the physical, characteristics of masculinity and femininity that are of interest.

Damn woke 90's science.

 

[JoeMorgue]

OK, is this somehow going to tie back to the question on the table? Starting to look a little free floating.

While we have a metric **** ton of issues floating around, the current trending one is that you simply can't identify a person's sex without a strip search or DNA test. It's just an inscrutable mystery when a young lady in a bikini happens by, and you have to ask if they are male or female or some other option which doesn't even exist but when you're chugging along on the imagination train you just cow scoop away inconvenient facts that land on the rails.

So rather than the Socratic back and forth, can we cut to the chase on this puppy? It seems we have Upchurch saying you cannot possibly guess sex, you saying that one shouldn't in order to be polite (although it seems to require being insulting to 99+% of people), and tyr_13 saying you often can guess right but don't kid yourself that you'll be right every time.

You seem to be drifting towards not acknowledging sex at all now? Like, if police are looking for a murderer or lost child, they shouldn't mention the sex of who to be on the lookout for unless that person filled out the questionnaire?

Seconded.

 

[IsThisTheLife]

When I was growing up, in the 70s, my dad kept complaining when he saw someone with long hair that he couldn't tell whether they were a man or a woman.
And somehow, civilisation did not collapse.

Lol. About that same time my maternal grandad literally used to sarcastically ask if I was "a boy or a girl" because from about sixteen I just couldn't be arsed to get my hair cut (I wasn't a hippy, more a heavy metal freak/biker).

Whatever, I don't recall anyone mistaking me for female even with my hair halfway down my back.

 

[d4m10n]

Quick question; besides d4m10n who claims to not have any problem with people doing either, does anyone actually think it is respectful/polite/kind/etc to misgender people to their faces?

Quick question: Does everyone believe that the respectful thing to do is necessarily the right thing to do in all circumstances?

Quick example 1: John Edward asks me to be respectful to the bereaved and thus refrain from openly mocking his claim to talk to the dead.

Quick example 2: Catholic priest demands to be respectfully referred to by his church title.

Quick example 3: Pretendian of European ancestry asks to be respectfully referred to by her adopted tribal name.

Quick example 4: Tumblr-addled adolescent claims to be a "system" of multiple personalities, asks that you respectfully address them by whatever name they are manifesting at the moment.

In the first two examples, people with outsized and unearned power (based on falsehood & lies) are using the conventions of respectability to suppress criticism and dissent. In the last two, people are leveraging the idea of being "respectful/polite/kind/etc" to validate their unverifiable claims of identity. Other examples abound, such as being asked to bow your head while everyone else in the room prays or being upbraided for casual blasphemy. Just because it is generally good to be respectful doesn't mean that it is always good and no one will try to take advantage. People who use the norms of respectfulness to exercise and reinforce their own power ought to be resisted, at least some of the time.

 

[tyr_13]

Quick question: Does everyone believe that the respectful thing to do is necessarily the right thing to do in all circumstances?

Is the respectful thing to do wrong in this instance?

Your attempt to dodge making a positive argument is rejected.

 

[d4m10n]

Is the respectful thing to do wrong in this instance?

If by "this" you mean my first post in the thread, I'd say it's up for debate. Ms. McCordto was told to just shut up and do the respectful thing, otherwise those in power would retaliate against her, as they eventually did.

 

[Trausti]

How is it respectful to oblige others to participate in your self-delusion?

 

[Samson]

How is it respectful to oblige others to participate in your self-delusion?

When school children are encouraged in this self delusion it is beyond a question of respect and is fair square child abuse.
We are dancing like puppets on strings.

 

[Thermal]

How is it respectful to oblige others to participate in your self-delusion?

Think if it was you. You're a guy, right? Tbink about going to the bar and wanting to hit on a hottie, but then you look down and note that you are rocking a vajaja. I mean, that's gotta be disorienting, man. I don't feel inclined to make things any harder on these cats than it already is for them to just wake up in the wrong body everyday. I'm wiling to set my reservations about whats real aside for them. They got enough to deal with.

 

[theprestige]

Think if it was you. You're a guy, right? Tbink about going to the bar and wanting to hit on a hottie, but then you look down and note that you are rocking a vajaja. I mean, that's gotta be disorienting, man. I don't feel inclined to make things any harder on these cats than it already is for them to just wake up in the wrong body everyday. I'm wiling to set my reservations about whats real aside for them. They got enough to deal with.

Dude throws his dick in your face, says, "what? You're attracted to women, right?" I bet your reservations about what's real come front and center.

 

[Thermal]

Dude throws his dick in your face, says, "what? You're attracted to women, right?" I bet your reservations about what's real come front and center.

I gots lines between passive and active support.

 

[arthwollipot]

OK, is this somehow going to tie back to the question on the table? Starting to look a little free floating.

While we have a metric **** ton of issues floating around, the current trending one is that you simply can't identify a person's sex without a strip search or DNA test. It's just an inscrutable mystery when a young lady in a bikini happens by, and you have to ask if they are male or female or some other option which doesn't even exist but when you're chugging along on the imagination train you just cow scoop away inconvenient facts that land on the rails.

So rather than the Socratic back and forth, can we cut to the chase on this puppy? It seems we have Upchurch saying you cannot possibly guess sex, you saying that one shouldn't in order to be polite (although it seems to require being insulting to 99+% of people), and tyr_13 saying you often can guess right but don't kid yourself that you'll be right every time.

You seem to be drifting towards not acknowledging sex at all now? Like, if police are looking for a murderer or lost child, they shouldn't mention the sex of who to be on the lookout for unless that person filled out the questionnaire?

I'm not drifting towards it. That's where I have firmly been for the whole conversation.

Or rather, where I have been is the place where someone's sex (biological, gonadal, chromosomal whatever) doesn't matter. Two situations have been presented where it matters - engaging in sexual intercourse with someone, and medicine. There may be one or two others. But for the most part, what "sex" someone is is both irrelevant and none of your business.

 

[arthwollipot]

Ahh... let me rephrase then:

You agree that we assign pronouns to animals on the basis of objective observation... but you assert that we ought to use pronouns for humans based on the subjective personal beliefs of each individual human.

Yes. We treat humans differently from the way we treat non-human animals. That is just a fact.

Why should I believe you?

You are under absolutely no obligation to believe me. But to contradict me is rude, and if done so deliberately, repeatedly and with intent may escalate to the point of harassment or bullying.

 

[arthwollipot]

I do not accept your assertion that a personally preferred pronoun based on subjective belief is "correct".

So far as I can tell, it's a matter of preference alone, based on wishes and belief. The person in question wishes that I would perceive them as being a different sex than they actually are, and prefers that I indulge their wishes by pretending that I think they're not their actual sex.

No. To call me by the pronouns she/her is not contrary to my preference, it's just wrong. It's just as wrong as calling me David or Michael. It's not my correct name, and it's not my correct pronoun.

 

[arthwollipot]

Generally, sure, we agree that it is polite and kind to not talk about people in the third person while they're right there.

More to your point, however, most of us agree that it's reasonable to play along when the transgender person is right there.

We talk about people when they're right there all the time.

And "play along"? How charitable.

 

[d4m10n]

We treat humans differently from the way we treat non-human animals.

A fairly recent development, on the pronoun front. Not too long ago, everyone was assigned pronouns at birth based on sex and no one was fired for using the original ones thereafter.

Has anyone given an argument for adopting the new approach over the original approach? Saying "it's just wrong" is a conclusion, not an argument.