So, we're having this small problem with Feral cats in Australia. That problem being that they're growing to enormous size(about the size of a bobcat or a serval), and killing everything they can successfully hunt.
Jesus Christ this country is fucked up sometimes. Seriously what the fuck.
I'm not a huge fan of it myself - I think it unnecessarily complicates the situation - but I can't imagine going on a hate tirade over it. I mean, people identify however they want to. Let 'em.
Yea, I think it's a huge mistake to complicate things too much, we just gotta get people over the whole other people's sex life is not your problem and it really doesn't matter what gender you are. Putting people into all sorts of categories doesn't help.
Well, there is the whole issue of biological/physical (for lack of a better term) vs. psychological/emotional gender. I haven't seen all the stuff going on, but Gabe was correct at least purely from the biological standpoint, even if he wasn't from the psychological standpoint.
Really? because I thought there was a really REALLY clear biological definition of what a woman is, and what a man is, male or female, aside from what you feel you are. Saying cisgender is pandering, I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure the majority of people are "cisgendered" at this moment in history. You have a penis, you are a man, you have a vagina, you are a woman; it's in the dictionary and that is the standard definition, what ever your sexual orientation might be.
Man what? "Cis" is a super useful term. It just lets you have a word that means "not trans*".
Or you just drop "trans." Trans- is used to modify the "default," and was originally used to mean "altered from original state."
Since "cis" means "in line with societal norms," you can accomplish the same thing by just modifying the word when it differs from the norm.
Some see that practice as othering (and I understand how - the concept of a "default" is branding), which is why "cis" came about.
But it's far from a "super useful" term.
Really? because I thought there was a really REALLY clear biological definition of what a woman is, and what a man is, male or female, aside from what you feel you are. Saying cisgender is pandering, I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure the majority of people are "cisgendered" at this moment in history. You have a penis, you are a man, you have a vagina, you are a woman; it's in the dictionary and that is the standard definition, what ever your sexual orientation might be.
You gringos and your PC bullshit.
Technically, testes and ovaries are the ones that matter more.
Human biological sex is not complicated. Your choices are: donor of genetic material, recepient of donated genetic material, or non-functioning. It only refers to an individual's function in a system of sexual reproduction. No sexual reproduction? No sex.
It has nothing to do with roles or expectations or a million other things.
However, we use terms like "male and female" or "man and woman" to refer to both the biological systems and the societal systems. That's the main issue.
Well the email response that is up on PA clears the matter up quite nicely. I understand that its a hot bed issue but everyone seems to start off hyper agressive which doesn't achieve anything, save for making everyone mad.
Edit; I believe that Sophie said in the article that the aggressive response didn't help matters.
I mean fuck it once the Culture comes about everything will be golden.
I still haven't read the original twitter tirade, and maybe I should do myself a favor and not read it in the first place. But I do like the end of the email-exchange post on PA:
So there you go. It’s not an easy conversation to have. Or maybe it is if you’re willing to actually have a conversation. My reaction when I feel backed into corner is to be an asshole. It’s essentially how I defend myself. It’s been that way since was in elementary school. I’m 36 now. Maybe it’s finally time to try and let some of that shit go.
If more people could admit that their reaction when they feel backed into a corner is to be an asshole, we could have a lot more actually-productive conversations, even about things as emotionally charged as gender.
If more people could admit that their reaction when they feel backed into a corner is to be an asshole, we could have a lot more actually-productive conversations, even about things as emotionally charged as gender.
The amount of hate and vitriol directly pointed at Gabe for some misguided comments really puts me off from the whole debate. It's a pretty disproportionate response IMHO.
Once genetic testing became fairly common, the notion that biological sex was a simple either/or situation kinda got blown to hell.
Not really. "Sex" in biology refers to the position of an organism within a system of sexual reproduction. The part that matters is how they function within that system - not necessarily the genes underlying it. And if they can't reproduce, their status is biologically irrelevant. We'll still describe it, sure - but it doesn't matter.
It's a functional/behavioral biology term. It pre-dates a lot of current biological knowledge, but we kept the terminology anyhow. The conservation of terminology is a big problem for the colloquial understanding of science.
We also tied our social structure to biological reality for a long time. That sort of created this idea that "sex" had broader implications than it really does.
The amount of hate and vitriol directly pointed at Gabe for some misguided comments really puts me off from the whole debate. It's a pretty disproportionate response IMHO.
Welcome to my feelings on every gender discussion for the last few years.
Ah fuck no. I like you guys, so this isn't an argument I'm going to have on this forum. I'll just go elsewhere and pretend this never happened.
If you have any biological arguments - you're wrong.
If you have ethical/moral/sociological/linguistic arguments - play ball.
See, here's the thing. It's not that simple. It never is!
From what I've read, they've done brain scans that show that significant number of trans folks have brain development more in line with the gender they identify as than the sex they'd been assigned. The development of your biological sex is pretty much entirely hormonal; when all works as intended, your chromosomes just kick off the hormone cascade that leads to sexual dimorphism. When that process is interrupted or modified in some way, as occurs in the sticky and complicated process of growing a human, all sorts of fun stuff happens.
Rym's "I identify as black" joke is fucking stupid because gender is not the same thing as race. Race is mostly cultural constructs built around some tiny morphological differences caused by genetic drift. Gender and biological sex is really, really complicated! It's not as easy as looking between a persons legs and going, welp, there you go, model 1 or model 2. There is a long process of development which results in what we see as dimorphic sexes and there are plenty of instances where it doesn't go quite to plan, so to speak. Sometimes it goes off in ways we immediately see, like in intersexed individuals. A lot of the time those people are given surgery that basically shoves them over to the best guess of the doctor and they're left to deal with that. Other times it's not noticeable for years. Sometimes, what went differently is so subtle the person never puts it together, experiencing minor symptoms of dysphoria without figuring out the cause.
It's the same way the Kinsey scale is. We have convenient categories of gay, straight, bi, pan that we use to varying degrees so we can easily sort people, because human beings run on generalization. That's okay, it's how our brain works, it's pretty fundamental. Well, there a lot of evidence that not only does gender work somewhat similarly, but it has ties to biological sex in ways that are varied and complicated. Like anything to do with gender, of course, this is caught up in the constructs of gender roles, meaning disentangling the two is crazy difficult. But people are no more just men or women than people are just gay or straight.
Maybe in the Culture-future we'll develop a machine that can do a real-time scan of the whole body and all the processes and what they all do, and we'll be able to isolate each part and go, oh, here we go, the ratio of hormones reaching this part of your body is why you feel this way about your body. Oh hey look, I found the particular bit of your brain that makes you like dudes. Whatever. We're not quite there yet, so we have to work with the symptoms, which in the case of gender really comes down to how people feel about who they are.
I don't know about you, but when I greet people, I say hello to their brain, I don't grab them by their junk. What their brain feels they are, however the person has sorted and rationalized the complexity of their body and mind with the human tendency for generalization, is far more important than whatever the esoteric processes involved in the development of their meat puppet spat out. To most people, it absolutely should not matter what-so-ever what a person's body looks like or how their genitals function. Even accepting a binary sort of male or female, it's completely irrelevant information for everyone but, perhaps, their doctors. (And even then, a lot of trans people try to avoid disclosing anything or getting check-ups because medical professionals have a long history of shitting on them.)
Saying "biologically male" or "biologically female" basically ignores a lot of the biology that's going on in favour of pointing at the most obvious trait.
God, this fucking conversation feels to me exactly like listening to baby boomers talk about gay people.
Man what? "Cis" is a super useful term. It just lets you have a word that means "not trans*".
Or you just drop "trans." Trans- is used to modify the "default," and was originally used to mean "altered from original state."
Since "cis" means "in line with societal norms," you can accomplish the same thing by just modifying the word when it differs from the norm.
Some see that practice as othering (and I understand how - the concept of a "default" is branding), which is why "cis" came about.
But it's far from a "super useful" term.
Most people aren't gay, but we have the word straight. Cis is just the same thing.
Sex = biological, based on chromosome combination Gender = how a person identifies
There's a reason we have two different terms. They are different things.
Also, I DID follow the original posts Gabe made in reference to the game in question. It didn't sound to me like he was being an asshole. Just pointing out a perfectly reasonable assumption that the game company made when they put together their advertising message, which ended up insulting some trans people. This whole thing is a mountain out of a molehill. Okay, so the company assumed when they said "women" they were advertising to people with vaginas. That seems pretty reasonable. Guess what? They also assumed in their message that all people having vaginas retain the clitoris. Not factual, but reasonable for the ad given the product. We get that not all people who gender-identify as women have vaginas. We get that some women are victims of genital mutilation. What term would you prefer this company use in their advertising? "Hey, all vagina-and-clitoris-having-persons, come play our game!" That is a TERRIBLE advertising message. They weren't trying to be exclusive. They were just trying to efficiently and effectively market their game, which is ALL that Gabe was pointing out originally.
Ah fuck no. I like you guys, so this isn't an argument I'm going to have on this forum. I'll just go elsewhere and pretend this never happened.
If you have any biological arguments - you're wrong.
If you have ethical/moral/sociological/linguistic arguments - play ball.
[words]
OK, let's do this thing:
1) Yes, it is that simple - because the thing I'm discussing (biological sex) has a much much narrower meaning than you are indicating.
The rest of your argument is sort of like the conflating of abiogenesis, speciation, and evolution. Related concepts? Sure. Can you talk about all of them in the same way with the same terms in one fell swoop? Nope.
Biological sex is precisely what I have described: the function of an ogranism in a system of sexual reproduction.
2) Yes, hormones do drive most of our development, and when stuff goes wrong, it goes wrong, man. However, the system in question inherently has a primary way of functioning (and it holds in the vast majority of cases), and several mutated variants that don't work as well (or at all in some cases). Mutations aren't a new way for the system to function, because they are very often non-functional. Many intersexed individuals are sterile, and from a strictly biological perspective, non-functional in a system of sexual reproduction.
3) Gender reassignment surgery is a tough one. That's a case where the psychological factors really need to be analyzed before any decision is made - and we don't understand those very well.
4) The psychology of the interaction between sex and gender is ludicrously complicated. Hormones and brain differences and chemical levels - all of these things govern behavior between organisms and within a society. Important as fuck, but not an inherent part of sex. Related, absolutely. But see above for my argument about related topics.
5) The sociological ramifications of sex and gender are even more complex, and are poorly understood. But here's one way to simplify them: take reproductive roles out of the equation.
And this is really the crux of my argument: all of your points are valid, but they're not about biological sex. Biological sex is a very narrow topic with an overburdened colloquial use. We would do better to simply divest ourselves of it entirely in daily conversations, and just talk about how we define ourselves within society. That's the part we care about anyhow.
Most people aren't gay, but we have the word straight. Cis is just the same thing.
That's...a really good point. Never thought about it like that.
God, this fucking conversation feels to me exactly like listening to baby boomers talk about gay people.
Aaaaaaaaaaand you suck. I like the way you're basically trying to dismiss a fucking expert in the biological sciences. I'm sorry, where are your credentials?
As far as I can tell, we don't actually disagree except that when you say your shit about the exact scientific meanings of biological sex, it isn't what laypeople hear. They hear, and I heard, incredibly shitty and harmful reinforcement of their stupid hang-up over dangly vs. non-dangley bits. It's like... you aren't wrong, but you are right on a level that enables other people to be wrong? I don't fucking know.
I think the real point is that I got really fucking angry at you, and I'm sorry. I have a few trans friends and I deal with people, even people I trusted and respected, being terrible to them all the time and trying to back it up with "science". It's actually refreshing to hear somebody who isn't awful talk about this from an educated point of view. I just couldn't make the distinction for a minute there.
It's a lot harder to give people the benefit of the doubt when almost everyone ends up being consistently shitty about your friends.
Aaaaaaaaaaand you suck. I like the way you're basically trying to dismiss a fucking expert in the biological sciences. I'm sorry, where are your credentials?
People being educated doesn't stop them from being shitty. I had this exact argument last week with a fucking biochemist (they joys of having your mom married to a scientist) that only ended when I dropped enough articles on him to overcome his bigoted bias. I thought there might be a forest-for-the-trees thing going on. There's no institution in the world which can certify you against being wrong sometimes, especially in areas like this where emotions or gut reaction can be very strong.
I mean, there are economists and political scientists that vote Republican!
Comments
Jesus Christ this country is fucked up sometimes. Seriously what the fuck.
In short, gender is complicated.
You gringos and your PC bullshit.
Since "cis" means "in line with societal norms," you can accomplish the same thing by just modifying the word when it differs from the norm.
Some see that practice as othering (and I understand how - the concept of a "default" is branding), which is why "cis" came about.
But it's far from a "super useful" term. Technically, testes and ovaries are the ones that matter more.
Human biological sex is not complicated. Your choices are: donor of genetic material, recepient of donated genetic material, or non-functioning. It only refers to an individual's function in a system of sexual reproduction. No sexual reproduction? No sex.
It has nothing to do with roles or expectations or a million other things.
However, we use terms like "male and female" or "man and woman" to refer to both the biological systems and the societal systems. That's the main issue.
Edit; I believe that Sophie said in the article that the aggressive response didn't help matters.
I mean fuck it once the Culture comes about everything will be golden.
If you have ethical/moral/sociological/linguistic arguments - play ball.
Edit: Apparently there are way more. XXYY XXXY XXXXY and there are XX males...
It's a functional/behavioral biology term. It pre-dates a lot of current biological knowledge, but we kept the terminology anyhow. The conservation of terminology is a big problem for the colloquial understanding of science.
We also tied our social structure to biological reality for a long time. That sort of created this idea that "sex" had broader implications than it really does.
It doesn't help that the imagery that accompanies it tends to be kinda silly or stupid.
#forgeworldproblems
From what I've read, they've done brain scans that show that significant number of trans folks have brain development more in line with the gender they identify as than the sex they'd been assigned. The development of your biological sex is pretty much entirely hormonal; when all works as intended, your chromosomes just kick off the hormone cascade that leads to sexual dimorphism. When that process is interrupted or modified in some way, as occurs in the sticky and complicated process of growing a human, all sorts of fun stuff happens.
Rym's "I identify as black" joke is fucking stupid because gender is not the same thing as race. Race is mostly cultural constructs built around some tiny morphological differences caused by genetic drift. Gender and biological sex is really, really complicated! It's not as easy as looking between a persons legs and going, welp, there you go, model 1 or model 2. There is a long process of development which results in what we see as dimorphic sexes and there are plenty of instances where it doesn't go quite to plan, so to speak. Sometimes it goes off in ways we immediately see, like in intersexed individuals. A lot of the time those people are given surgery that basically shoves them over to the best guess of the doctor and they're left to deal with that. Other times it's not noticeable for years. Sometimes, what went differently is so subtle the person never puts it together, experiencing minor symptoms of dysphoria without figuring out the cause.
It's the same way the Kinsey scale is. We have convenient categories of gay, straight, bi, pan that we use to varying degrees so we can easily sort people, because human beings run on generalization. That's okay, it's how our brain works, it's pretty fundamental. Well, there a lot of evidence that not only does gender work somewhat similarly, but it has ties to biological sex in ways that are varied and complicated. Like anything to do with gender, of course, this is caught up in the constructs of gender roles, meaning disentangling the two is crazy difficult. But people are no more just men or women than people are just gay or straight.
Maybe in the Culture-future we'll develop a machine that can do a real-time scan of the whole body and all the processes and what they all do, and we'll be able to isolate each part and go, oh, here we go, the ratio of hormones reaching this part of your body is why you feel this way about your body. Oh hey look, I found the particular bit of your brain that makes you like dudes. Whatever. We're not quite there yet, so we have to work with the symptoms, which in the case of gender really comes down to how people feel about who they are.
I don't know about you, but when I greet people, I say hello to their brain, I don't grab them by their junk. What their brain feels they are, however the person has sorted and rationalized the complexity of their body and mind with the human tendency for generalization, is far more important than whatever the esoteric processes involved in the development of their meat puppet spat out. To most people, it absolutely should not matter what-so-ever what a person's body looks like or how their genitals function. Even accepting a binary sort of male or female, it's completely irrelevant information for everyone but, perhaps, their doctors. (And even then, a lot of trans people try to avoid disclosing anything or getting check-ups because medical professionals have a long history of shitting on them.)
Saying "biologically male" or "biologically female" basically ignores a lot of the biology that's going on in favour of pointing at the most obvious trait.
God, this fucking conversation feels to me exactly like listening to baby boomers talk about gay people. Most people aren't gay, but we have the word straight. Cis is just the same thing. This.
Gender = how a person identifies
There's a reason we have two different terms. They are different things.
Also, I DID follow the original posts Gabe made in reference to the game in question. It didn't sound to me like he was being an asshole. Just pointing out a perfectly reasonable assumption that the game company made when they put together their advertising message, which ended up insulting some trans people. This whole thing is a mountain out of a molehill. Okay, so the company assumed when they said "women" they were advertising to people with vaginas. That seems pretty reasonable. Guess what? They also assumed in their message that all people having vaginas retain the clitoris. Not factual, but reasonable for the ad given the product. We get that not all people who gender-identify as women have vaginas. We get that some women are victims of genital mutilation. What term would you prefer this company use in their advertising? "Hey, all vagina-and-clitoris-having-persons, come play our game!" That is a TERRIBLE advertising message. They weren't trying to be exclusive. They were just trying to efficiently and effectively market their game, which is ALL that Gabe was pointing out originally.
1) Yes, it is that simple - because the thing I'm discussing (biological sex) has a much much narrower meaning than you are indicating.
The rest of your argument is sort of like the conflating of abiogenesis, speciation, and evolution. Related concepts? Sure. Can you talk about all of them in the same way with the same terms in one fell swoop? Nope.
Biological sex is precisely what I have described: the function of an ogranism in a system of sexual reproduction.
2) Yes, hormones do drive most of our development, and when stuff goes wrong, it goes wrong, man. However, the system in question inherently has a primary way of functioning (and it holds in the vast majority of cases), and several mutated variants that don't work as well (or at all in some cases). Mutations aren't a new way for the system to function, because they are very often non-functional. Many intersexed individuals are sterile, and from a strictly biological perspective, non-functional in a system of sexual reproduction.
3) Gender reassignment surgery is a tough one. That's a case where the psychological factors really need to be analyzed before any decision is made - and we don't understand those very well.
4) The psychology of the interaction between sex and gender is ludicrously complicated. Hormones and brain differences and chemical levels - all of these things govern behavior between organisms and within a society. Important as fuck, but not an inherent part of sex. Related, absolutely. But see above for my argument about related topics.
5) The sociological ramifications of sex and gender are even more complex, and are poorly understood. But here's one way to simplify them: take reproductive roles out of the equation.
And this is really the crux of my argument: all of your points are valid, but they're not about biological sex. Biological sex is a very narrow topic with an overburdened colloquial use. We would do better to simply divest ourselves of it entirely in daily conversations, and just talk about how we define ourselves within society. That's the part we care about anyhow. That's...a really good point. Never thought about it like that. Aaaaaaaaaaand you suck. I like the way you're basically trying to dismiss a fucking expert in the biological sciences. I'm sorry, where are your credentials?
I think the real point is that I got really fucking angry at you, and I'm sorry. I have a few trans friends and I deal with people, even people I trusted and respected, being terrible to them all the time and trying to back it up with "science". It's actually refreshing to hear somebody who isn't awful talk about this from an educated point of view. I just couldn't make the distinction for a minute there.
It's a lot harder to give people the benefit of the doubt when almost everyone ends up being consistently shitty about your friends. People being educated doesn't stop them from being shitty. I had this exact argument last week with a fucking biochemist (they joys of having your mom married to a scientist) that only ended when I dropped enough articles on him to overcome his bigoted bias. I thought there might be a forest-for-the-trees thing going on. There's no institution in the world which can certify you against being wrong sometimes, especially in areas like this where emotions or gut reaction can be very strong.
I mean, there are economists and political scientists that vote Republican!