Funny Events of the "Woke" world

[Avnger]

Transsexual.

I've been on this forum longer than the currently vogue concept of gender. I remember when the fashionable phrase was "gender is a social construct". We're now talking about gender as an inherent characteristic to every human, distinct from sex but also potentially biologically determined, and applying that concept to times and places that had vastly different social constructs than we do now. Gender, as categories of human beings, is a 20th century idea. The word transgender is only 47 years old. The way people are currently treating gender is much, much younger than that. It doesn't matter much if there were people thousands of years ago who wished to be the opposite sex, a idea of a person with a penis believing themselves to be a woman inherently is something that's sprung up within our lifetimes.

Let's hypothetically (because, factually, you're wrong) pretend you're correct about this. Your underlying assumption though is that because humans didn't understand gender prior to the 20th century that it didn't exist. That's, obviously, utter nonsense. Did germs not exist prior to 1864 because the theory behind it wasn't codified? Did hysteria exist as an actual illness cured by inducing an orgasm until the mid-20th century then magically disappear?

 

[Asita]

How do you explain stories like Mulan? Or are we just doing one way

Bad example. Setting aside that Mulan was a folk heroine of questionable historicity, gender actually doesn't play much role in the the non-Disnified story. Point of fact, the moral of the story is that - on scale - the differences between men and women are virtually nil. Her comrades didn't even realize that she was female until after her enlistment was up and they visited her hometown where they saw her immediately presenting as a woman once more. As the titular character herself put it in the final verse: "The male hare has heavy front paws. The female hare tends to squint. But when they are running side-by-side close to the ground, who can tell me which is male or female?"

She's presented more as akin to Jeanne d'Arc, Mary Read, or Anne Bonney (presenting as male for issues of practicality/in pursuit of a goal) than Chevalier d'Eon (muddy waters with conflicting claims on that one, but probably a transwoman).

 

[tstorm823]

Your underlying assumption though is that because humans didn't understand gender prior to the 20th century that it didn't exist.

Some things are discovered. Some are invented. Biological realities are discovered. Social constructs ate invented. For you to compare it to discovering germs suggests you believe gender is a biological reality, to which I say not only did that not exist prior to the 20th century, it still doesn't exist.

How do you explain stories like Mulan? Or are we just doing one way

Taking at face value the story of a woman presenting as a man, those presentations were differentiations between sex, not gender. Mulan in the story harbored no belief that she was a man.

Nonbianry gender roles have been a thing in non-European civilizations for millennia.

That's fine. That is not the same thing as saying the categories of man and woman are independent from sex. Not conforming to social norms is a different thing than claiming manhood and womanhood are determined by your relationship to social norms.

The only reason we can't go back all the way into prehistory is because once you get to the 18th century the whole understanding of sex and gender becomes so alien from anything that exists today that it's hard to draw the line.

Yes, the social constructions being proposed today are completely alien to anything in the past. People behave as though there were many trans people who just didn't have the words to express their feelings, but these modern expressions are a response to current social conditions that did not exist then, period.

 

[tstorm823]

And the functional difference, in the time before hormone treatments and effective sex change operations is...?
These people felt so strongly about being the opposite gender that they volunteered for suicidal surgery attempting transplants that we don't have the tech to do *now*.

Wanting to be a different sex badly enough for surgery is not the same thing as saying you are that sex without surgery. The former is a much older and more universal concept.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Wanting to be a different sex badly enough for surgery is not the same thing as saying you are that sex without surgery. The former is a much older and more universal concept.

So, literal millennia of people saying "I'm an <x> stuck in a <y's> body, so I'm going to be an <x> regardless and do <x's> roles in society" is significantly different than trans people today because some people today...respect that?

I mean, shit dude: lotta stories about people only being "discovered" to be a different sex after they died involved coroners not respecting the dead's wishes to be buried in their clothes. Hell, saw some newspaper announcements from the 1920s announcing, for lack of a better term, somebody going from woman to man. Not being able to roll with the idea that some people are born in the wrong body seems to be a modern invention. Hence the book burnings.

Honestly probably has something to do with HRT and surgery existing. You really don't have to examine your belief that a human's body and gender is immutable so long as somebody's body is *actually* immutable. But it turns out that we're pretty mutable and the tech is only going to get better.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Yes, the social constructions being proposed today are completely alien to anything in the past. People behave as though there were many trans people who just didn't have the words to express their feelings, but these modern expressions are a response to current social conditions that did not exist then, period.

Those "social constructions" include the concept of biological sex. Noone prior to the 18th century knew or believed in such a thing.

There are two ways of looking at this one. The first, which would be my stance as an academic, is that applying trans identity to historical figures is the imposition of an alien discourse, but I'd also specifically clarify that in case it gave people the wrong idea. That alien discourse is our entire understanding of sex and gender, it includes literally everything you believe about these things. It includes the idea that men and women are clearly defined natural categories deriving from the physically distinct features of the body, because that concept is completely alien prior to the eighteenth century.

The other way of looking at it is in terms of resemblances. Because, even when we take away the completely alien and nonsensical (women growing penises because they exerted themselves chasing a goat) there are countless, countless accounts of people in history who resemble what we would call a trans person. The simple fact is that in any society that has a concept of sex or gender, there has always been gender variance. No historical society, despite the incredible brutality with which the division of the sexes was often enforced (and whatever weird form that division took), has ever gotten rid of gender variance. Because, at the end of the day, nature is entirely indifferent to whatever intrinsic value we assign to the bits of meat we pilot around. That's something only we are capable of caring about.

So, alien discourse or not, trans people deserve to be affirmed by seeing themselves in history even if only in the form of resemblance. They deserve to know that they have always been here, and the people who think otherwise deserve to know it too.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

He stated that he thought Trump was rushing the process. There's not much I agree with Biden on but this was a possibility I did agree thus I let others take the vaccine first. But I personally dont see this as a Trump thing. A vaccine being ready in 12 mths gets an eye brow raise from me

Oh sure Trump was rushing it but somehow Biden getting the vaccine through so quick after being elected couldn't be seen as him rushing it as much to try and get a good start to his presidency lol. It was amazing seeing the switch on social media with like 1-2 days after taking the office all the "Trump is rushing the vaccine it's not safe" lot flipping immediately to "Anyone who won't take the vaccine is a psycho who wants to murder people"

 

[tstorm823]

So, literal millennia of people saying "I'm an <x> stuck in a <y's> body, so I'm going to be an <x> regardless and do <x's> roles in society" is significantly different than trans people today because some people today...respect that?

That's not a thing like you're implying, and the rare instance of someone saying something like that is a spiritual or metaphorical statement. And still, even then, the acceptance of such a thing as "a man's body" is contrary to current gender theories.

Those "social constructions" include the concept of biological sex. Noone prior to the 18th century knew or believed in such a thing.

There are two ways of looking at this one. The first, which would be my stance as an academic, is that applying trans identity to historical figures is the imposition of an alien discourse, but I'd also specifically clarify that in case it gave people the wrong idea. That alien discourse is our entire understanding of sex and gender, it includes literally everything you believe about these things. It includes the idea that men and women are clearly defined natural categories deriving from the physically distinct features of the body, because that concept is completely alien prior to the eighteenth century.

The other way of looking at it is in terms of resemblances. Because, even when we take away the completely alien and nonsensical (women growing penises because they exerted themselves chasing a goat) there are countless, countless accounts of people in history who resemble what we would call a trans person. The simple fact is that in any society that has a concept of sex or gender, there has always been gender variance. No historical society, despite the incredible brutality with which the division of the sexes was often enforced (and whatever weird form that division took), has ever gotten rid of gender variance. Because, at the end of the day, nature is entirely indifferent to whatever intrinsic value we assign to the bits of meat we pilot around. That's something only we are capable of caring about.

So, alien discourse or not, trans people deserve to be affirmed by seeing themselves in history even if only in the form of resemblance. They deserve to know that they have always been here, and the people who think otherwise deserve to know it too.

It's amazing to me that you can understand exactly the situation historically, and yet stubbornly insist on warping your perspective based solely on who you want your words to support. There aren't trans people through history, because the concept of gender that does not allow for ambiguity, against which people can be classified as trans, did not exist. But rather than push back on a broken paradigm from the last century, you'd rather retroactively apply the standard you rebel against just to make it look like your chosen battle lines have deeper meaning and longer pedigree.

 

[AnxietyProne]

"Anyone who won't take the vaccine is a psycho who wants to murder people"

No, that's what you say we vaccinated are, us Viral Load carrying vaccine shedding typhoid mary's.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

That's not a thing like you're implying, and the rare instance of someone saying something like that is a spiritual or metaphorical statement. And still, even then, the acceptance of such a thing as "a man's body" is contrary to current gender theories.

It's amazing to me that you can understand exactly the situation historically, and yet stubbornly insist on warping your perspective based solely on who you want your words to support. There aren't trans people through history, because the concept of gender that does not allow for ambiguity, against which people can be classified as trans, did not exist. But rather than push back on a broken paradigm from the last century, you'd rather retroactively apply the standard you rebel against just to make it look like your chosen battle lines have deeper meaning and longer pedigree.

Just because General Relativity didn't exist until 1915 doesn't mean general relativity didn't exist until 1915.

We're using modern terminology to describe past events because that's how linear time works.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

No, that's what you say we vaccinated are, us Viral Load carrying vaccine shedding typhoid mary's.

I'm vaccinated you dipstick and have never called you that so take the strawman out of here before I get the spray can and lighter out.

 

[Kwak]

I'm vaccinated you dipstick and have never called you that so take the strawman out of here before I get the spray can and lighter out.

Jesus your utter lack of self-awareness is horrifying.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Jesus your utter lack of self-awareness is horrifying.

Kwak you done with that mirror yet?

 

[Avnger]

Kwak you done with that mirror yet?

Back in middle school, this kind of retort might have gotten you a few cheers. Most of us are no longer preteens though, so it's just a bit sad.

 

[tstorm823]

Just because General Relativity didn't exist until 1915 doesn't mean general relativity didn't exist until 1915.

We're using modern terminology to describe past events because that's how linear time works.

You're not though. Society isn't physics. It's not a constant through all space and time. You are, at best, guessing how past people might react if transported to modern society. Chances are that if you took someone from more than a century ago, they'd be surprised at how strictly sex differences are coded into everything, regardless of their personal persuasions. The things we do now are basically a caricature of what worked in the past, taken to a detrimental extreme. Feminism challenged the overly male oriented world that emerged from the industrial revolution, where transgenderism insists on operating within the caricature, which is why those movements clash.

 

[Terminal Blue]

It's amazing to me that you can understand exactly the situation historically, and yet stubbornly insist on warping your perspective based solely on who you want your words to support.

All perspectives on history are warped. It's kind of a built-in feature of history itself. We don't study history for the benefit of dead people in the past, we study it for people in the present, because we are people in the present and no exercise in imagination can make us anything else.

There aren't trans people through history, because the concept of gender that does not allow for ambiguity, against which people can be classified as trans, did not exist.

Depending on how far you go back, basically no concept which matches our modern understanding exists. It all becomes resemblances. History necessarily involves a process of translation, and that's true of everything, not just gender.

And by saying there are no trans people in history, while technically correct, what you're implicitly doing is letting cis people off the hook. Cis people, like trans people, necessarily live in the present, and in the present cis people have learned to view their own sexual identities as natural and uncontested, as something that just exists and has always existed and always will. But that is not the case. Sure, men and women existed and they had penises and vaginas, but again, even saying that is a resemblance. People in history did not have the same understanding of what a penis was as a modern person.

But it also allows for another sneaky little myth, that historical accounts of sex/gender are somehow more ambiguous and hazy than our modern ones, that everyone just kind of existed in this genderless liminal space waiting for real big boy science to come along and show them the truth. That is very sadly untrue. The concept of sex in many historical societies may be incomprehensible to us, but it was absolutely real to the people who lived in those societies. Huge numbers of books were written on how to classify men and women for the purposes of applying religious law, and those laws could be and were violated very easily. The punishment for violating those laws was, for many people, literally being burned alive, or if you were lucky, being mutilated and exiled. It was a very real, very arbitrary and absolutely inflexible system of belief.

Also, as alien as the pre-scientific understanding of sex might have been, some of its implicit features have not changed. Everyone at this point accepts the concept of sex as an empirical observation to explain the biological mechanism of reproduction. That is, however, not what sex means in this society we live in. It is never what sex has meant. Before anyone knew what an ovum or spermatozoon or a sertoli cell was, sex still existed, and it described (much as it does today) a strange and completely unscientific point at which the features of human bodies, the interior nature of human beings, and the purpose for which human beings were put on this earth magically and conveniently intersected.

If you're going to continue to believe that history was populated by "men" and "women", and that this system of classification, and the imagined difference between these two types of person both then and now, were anything more than a laughable consequence of a defective understanding of biology, then you have no right to talk about people warping their perspectives.

 

[tstorm823]

And by saying there are no trans people in history, while technically correct, what you're often doing is implicitly letting cis people off the hook. Cis people, like trans people, necessarily live in the present, and in the present cis people have learned to view their own sexual identities as natural and uncontested, as something that just exists and has always existed and always will. But that is not the case.

It's not my perspective that asserts this though, it is yours, or more aggressively MysteriousGX's. The concept of cis- only exists as a counterpart to trans-. You've asserted this artificial identity spectrum that leads to the inevitable conclusion that cis- has dominated society for generations. Whether that is explained by being the natural state or due to persecution is going to depend who you're talking to, but I'm not interested in rationalizing imaginary histories.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Back in middle school, this kind of retort might have gotten you a few cheers. Most of us are no longer preteens though, so it's just a bit sad.

The same could be said for most the barbs you and your associates regularly throw out. If you expect a better quality of retort maybe get a better repertoire to you attempted owns.

OR

Alternatively you cold actually try to present arguments rather than Whataboutism and deflections, but we both know that isn't likely to start happening these days.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Welcome to woke world where Trump's travel ban to try and stop Covid reaching the USA were bad


But Biden's find banning travel to stop variants


*plays Curb Your Enthusiasm music*

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Also from Woke world.

A Christmas movie where Santa is a toxic douche bro businessman and gets called problematic because he's a White Man oh and a fuck ton of fucking swearing for the fuckers who fucking like that fucking shit and think it somehow makes a fucking shitty bastard point more bastarding clever oh and how a female elf fights to become the next Santa.