If DeSantis wins

[tstorm823]

However, I simply cannot accept that a good answer is just to squash transpeople by denying their existence or certain rights of self-identification, on the principles of care for their wellbeing, an ideological basis of personal freedoms, or even just basic respect and courtesy towards fellow members of society.

Ok, but "transpeople" only exist within this paradigm of gender we currently rest in. In a different paradigm, the same people feeling the same things could find both acceptance in society and comfort in their own identity without taking roles at odds with societal norms or taking away the reproductive meanings of sex-related words that are needed to perpetuate the species.

 

[Silvanus]

I never said any of that.

Your exact response, when I said you were treating identity as "little more than external perception", was "yes". Unless you want to start quibbling about the wording of 'little more than', that's pretty explicit.

Then when I said it related to someone's traits and characteristics, you started on the "objective reality is unknowable" bargain-basement philosophy stuff as a dismissal.

You're shamelessly trying to rewrite the position you took.

 

[Ag3ma]

Ok, but "transpeople" only exist within this paradigm of gender we currently rest in. In a different paradigm, the same people feeling the same things could find both acceptance in society and comfort in their own identity without taking roles at odds with societal norms or taking away the reproductive meanings of sex-related words that are needed to perpetuate the species.

Sure. But we have to work with the existing constructs of sex & gender that we already have. From that we either exclude transpeople, evolve them to handle transpeople, or carry out a colossal social engineering revolution to fundamentally reconstruct our notions of sex and gender at a much deeper level. I'm pretty sure the latter would be much more disruptive, and potentially more likely to fail.

 

[Hades]

The fact that a thread named “if Desantis wins” was made at the time this was possibly can be put into the “funny event of anti woke world” due to how such an outcome is now hilariously impossible.

 

[tstorm823]

Your exact response, when I said you were treating identity as "little more than external perception", was "yes". Unless you want to start quibbling about the wording of 'little more than', that's pretty explicit.

That's not a quibble. It's the words you chose to use. And they are explicitly not what you are claiming they are.

Then when I said it related to someone's traits and characteristics, you started on the "objective reality is unknowable" bargain-basement philosophy stuff as a dismissal.

You didn't say "it related to someone's traits and characteristics", you said "The only tenable and reliable basis for it rests in the characteristics of the object". Noting that your understanding of those characteristics are themselves based in human perception, making them equally unreliable a standard, is a direct response to that.

Note: you were the one saying that nobody can say anything about another's identity, you were the one saying that internal characteristics were the only thing worth consideration. You were the one taking the "only one thing is valid" perspective you're accusing me of.

From that we either exclude transpeople, evolve them to handle transpeople, or carry out a colossal social engineering revolution to fundamentally reconstruct our notions of sex and gender at a much deeper level.

I would say the current trend is to do none of these and just pretend there's no contradiction or conflict. To just say "trans women are women" and expect people to fall into line with those roles is including without evolving or reconstructing anything, we are just staying trapped, cementing even further into the social structures that demand these gendered behavioral expectations.

 

[Silvanus]

That's not a quibble. It's the words you chose to use. And they are explicitly not what you are claiming they are.

Oh, please. The phrase "little more than external perception" means you acknowledge stuff outside of external perception has a significant role, does it? This is some really weak stuff.

You didn't say "it related to someone's traits and characteristics", you said "The only tenable and reliable basis for it rests in the characteristics of the object". Noting that your understanding of those characteristics are themselves based in human perception, making them equally unreliable a standard, is a direct response to that.

Note the word 'basis'. A trait is observed, and serves as the basis for comparison; the trait and observation are both involved in the process; one serving as the basis, one providing a frame of reference and context.

And if the observer is not observing an actual trait of the object... then what they are observing is irrelevant to identity of that object. Their judgement says little about the object, and only tells us about the observer's frame of reference.

Note: you were the one saying that nobody can say anything about another's identity, you were the one saying that internal characteristics were the only thing worth consideration. You were the one taking the "only one thing is valid" perspective you're accusing me of.

Everything written here about my position is a misrepresention, another attempt to rewrite the conversation. For you to do that after complaining I misrepresented you is utter hypocrisy and dishonesty.

 

[tstorm823]

For you to do that after complaining I misrepresented you is utter hypocrisy and dishonesty.

Except it isn't, because what I'm saying is accurate and what you're saying isn't, and there's pages of records of all of it that anyone can read and verify.

 

[Ag3ma]

I would say the current trend is to do none of these and just pretend there's no contradiction or conflict.

We are in a transitional phase from trans people effectively not being recognised as existing in our societies to one where they are increasingly accepted as their chosen gender with the conflicts obvious enough and under discussion. Bear in mind this phase is decades long, not an unusual timescale for this sort of thing.

The end is not decided, but I would strongly suggest that it will be that trans rights as currently worked for will mostly be achieved as the yoof of today seem well in support. It might just take the less accepting older generations to die off - much societal change occurs gradually, one funeral at a time.

 

[Silvanus]

Except it isn't, because what I'm saying is accurate and what you're saying isn't, and there's pages of records of all of it that anyone can read and verify.

Yes, that there is. If you can provide an example of my actually saying that nonsense, I'd be happy to see it. Noone else will find it-- it didn't happen. You're fibbing, like when you quoted that sentence of mine about the /basis/ of identity being X, and then pretended that I'd said it involved nothing else.

Whereas I can point directly to where you explicitly said identity is "little more than external perception", a position directly contradicted by the definitions given later. It was here, for anyone reading along.

EDIT:
Really, I suspect you're now just at the stage of reputation management and consider the actual point of contention to be a bust you'd like to abandon. I noticed you've stopped responding to specifics or answering questions, in favour of snipping out most of the posts to which you respond and offering nothing but vague admonishment. Huh! it happened pretty much at exactly the point all those definitions were posted, talking at length about sense-of-self and traits and characteristics, and not very much about external perception.

 

[tstorm823]

Yes, that there is. If you can provide an example of my actually saying that nonsense, I'd be happy to see it. Noone else will find it-- it didn't happen. You're fibbing, like when you quoted that sentence of mine about the /basis/ of identity being X, and then pretended that I'd said it involved nothing else.

Whereas I can point directly to where you explicitly said identity is "little more than external perception", a position directly contradicted by the definitions given later. It was here, for anyone reading along.

EDIT:
Really, I suspect you're now just at the stage of reputation management and consider the actual point of contention to be a bust you'd like to abandon. I noticed you've stopped responding to specifics or answering questions, in favour of snipping out most of the posts to which you respond and offering nothing but vague admonishment. Huh! it happened pretty much at exactly the point all those definitions were posted, talking at length about sense-of-self and traits and characteristics, and not very much about external perception.

Reputation management? This is the Escapist. We're surrounded by communists. You think I have a reputation to manage?

It is not worth my time to go through and pull out every time we did this:

You have zero ownership or claim to someone else's identity.

Everyone totally does have partial claim on everyone else's identity.

It's been nearly two weeks of you just not getting it, and now that you have found maybe you don't know the words you use all that well, you're trying to rewrite the whole conversation.

We are in a transitional phase from trans people effectively not being recognised as existing in our societies to one where they are increasingly accepted as their chosen gender with the conflicts obvious enough and under discussion. Bear in mind this phase is decades long, not an unusual timescale for this sort of thing.

The end is not decided, but I would strongly suggest that it will be that trans rights as currently worked for will mostly be achieved as the yoof of today seem well in support. It might just take the less accepting older generations to die off - much societal change occurs gradually, one funeral at a time.

Here's my "should": "trans" should not be a recognized category at all. A society that considers "trans" as a distinct category is segregating by arbitrary gender roles. Now to make it less of a "should", if you want people to stop killing themselves from isolation and identity crises, no amount of social acceptance or old people dying is ever going to fix a system where some people have a label slapped on them to say they have the wrong body. Being supportive isn't going to fix that.

 

[Silvanus]

Reputation management? This is the Escapist. We're surrounded by communists. You think I have a reputation to manage?

Yes, you absolutely want people to believe you didn't take the position you originally did.

It is not worth my time to go through and pull out every time we did this:

Another misrepresentation, like with the 'basis' quote. Do you think others having no /ownership/ over one's identity somehow means that comparisons, context etc play no role whatsoever? Because that's obviously not what that means to an honest reader.

 

[tstorm823]

Yes, you absolutely want people to believe you didn't take the position you originally did.

You mean the position you made up for me:

What bollocks. If you think it's interchangeable with external perception and nothing more, your own grasp of it is pretty immature-

I have no intention of being your strawman today.

You made a strawman, I called it a strawman, it's been five pages of arguing since then.

Another misrepresentation, like with the 'basis' quote. Do you think others having no /ownership/ over one's identity somehow means that comparisons, context etc play no role whatsoever? Because that's obviously not what that means to an honest reader.

Forgive me, it's a little difficult to interpret:

A reference point doesn't somehow gain some claim to define something that refers to it.

As "context and comparisons play a role". Nevermind the silliness of the statement, a reference point exists to define the things that refer to it, it's the absolute nature of the statement we're looking at here. Points of comparison have no claim to define your identity, that was your position. Own it or change your mind, anything but this "you're pretending you took a different position" farce.

 

[Bedinsis]

You mean the position you made up for me

I've been following this discussion from the sidelines so it is possible that I've missed something in your posts but it's a bit hard to read the following as anything other than accurate with Silvanus' statements:

You're treating identity as little more than external perception.

Yes.

I know you had a discussion about a "quibble" in regards to this, but I did not understand that.

 

[Ag3ma]

Here's my "should": "trans" should not be a recognized category at all.

That's fine, then: transwomen are women and transmen are men.

 

[Silvanus]

You mean the position you made up for me

I did not make up the position you took that identity is little more than external perception. You said that explicitly. That does not leave room for other things to play any significant role.

You were then presented with numerous definitions that talked abour the sense-of-self, traits and characteristics, and saying very little of external perception being the determinant. You're not going to get past that: your definition was directly and unambiguously contradicted.

Forgive me, it's a a little difficult to interpret:
"A reference point doesn't somehow gain some claim to define something that refers to it."
As "context and comparisons play a role".

Ah, now this is some prime dishonesty.

Let's look at the context. In the prior post, you said "Everyone absolutely does have *partial claim* to everyone else's identity". This goes so far beyond merely saying that everyone else, in existing as reference points, provide *context and comparisons* for that identity. It is a claim that other people have a partial right to *decide* what someone else's identity is.

That's what the 'ownership' and 'claim' we were talking about are. Not mere existence as a reference point, as a roadsign may be used as a reference point for a turn. But decision-making power. Whereby if I think you're a Protestant, its as valid to your identity as your belief you're a Catholic, because I've got just as much claim and ownership of your identity as you.

 

[tstorm823]

I've been following this discussion from the sidelines so it is possible that I've missed something in your posts but it's a bit hard to read the following as anything other than accurate with Silvanus' statements:

Identity is how a person is distinguished from others. Most of that is going to be about how people see you, whether it's the way you are seen or the way you want to be seen. If you identify yourself as something, you are trying to guide others' external perceptions of you, that's the point of identifying as such. And of course people's external perceptions of you are going to be largely based on your actual characteristics. It is more than just external perception, since your self-image also counts for something, but that external perception is the bigger part, particularly when based in your actual characteristics. If you are a man with children, you are a father. You can say "I don't see myself as a father" as much as you want, that external relationship defines your identity whether you want it to or not. If you never bathe, having a self-image of a clean, nice smelling person doesn't matter, nor does it matter if you don't consider cleanliness part of your identity, you're going to be identified by others by your smell, that's part of your identity.

I'm saying that if you are taller than everyone around you and they treat you as such, being tall will be part of your identity. That's not an internal thing, that's not an intrinsic characteristic (as it is relative to the people around you), nor is it a decision you made (you can't just decide to be tall), it is an aspect of identity determined by others around you. Silvanus is interpreting what I'm saying to mean that if someone is hallucinating and sees you as a Killer Tomato, a perception totally divorced from reality, I expect that to magically transform you into a giant evil cartoon produce monster. Which is an altogether silly interpretation of what I'm saying.

So yes, it is mostly about external perception. No, that doesn't make Silvanus' "understanding" of my point even remotely accurate. And of course, I have at no point here changed my position.

That's fine, then: transwomen are women and transmen are men.

Now, what is a man and what is a woman? It's not just a trick question, it's the most important part. We can change words to mean whatever we want them to, but if they're going to be people's identities, they need to mean something.

 

[tstorm823]

I did not make up the position you took that identity is little more than external perception. You said that explicitly. That does not leave room for other things to play any significant role.

Yes, it does leave room for that.

You were then presented with numerous definitions that talked abour the sense-of-self, traits and characteristics, and saying very little of external perception being the determinant.

But they did.

Let's look at the context. In the prior post, you said "Everyone absolutely does have *partial claim* to everyone else's identity". This goes so far beyond merely saying that everyone else, in existing as reference points, provide *context and comparisons* for that identity. It is a claim that other people have a partial right to *decide* what someone else's identity is.

That's what the 'ownership' and 'claim' we were talking about are. Not mere existence as a reference point, as a roadsign may be used as a reference point for a turn. But decision-making power. Whereby if I think you're a Protestant, its as valid to your identity as your belief you're a Catholic, because I've got just as much claim and ownership of your identity as you.

This is not accurate. "Ownership" and "claim" don't necessarily indicate control. Some forms of ownership let you decide things about what you own, others do not. Does owning one Amazon stock let you control the corporation, let you decide what it does? Maybe if enough stockholders got together, but that's sort of the point. One person claiming I'm a different religion has no meaningful impact. If the entire Catholic Church declared me a heretic and excommunicated me, do you think my identity as a Catholic is entirely unaltered by that?

And you think nobody else has any claim to your identity, that you have 100% claim to your identity, does that mean you get to control what it is? Are you deciding your identity right now? Does owning your identity give you unlimited control over it?

 

[Silvanus]

Yes, it does leave room for that.

"Little" = "significant"? That's what you're going with?

This is not accurate. "Ownership" and "claim" don't necessarily indicate control.

Context shows us that we were specifically talking about the right to determine what pronouns someone goes by: with Phoenixmgs opening that an external observer has as much right to decide as the individual does about themselves.

So we can clear that up right now: that we were in fact talking about the ability to decide; and that the 'share' analogy falls through, because Phoenixmgs was placing the external observer on an equal (or greater) footing than the individual to whom they apply. So if we were talking about shares, we'd be talking about the majority stake.

And you think nobody else has any claim to your identity, that you have 100% claim to your identity, does that mean you get to control what it is? Are you deciding your identity right now? Does owning your identity give you unlimited control over it?

I've stated over and over again that comparisons and context exist, and effectively limit the judgements one can reasonably make. I'd appreciate it if you dropped the strawman "oh so you can just make up anything 100%" approach.

What I've said is that regarding internal matters, such as gender identity, the individual is a better arbiter than an external observer-- because it is largely indicated by how the person feels.

 

[tstorm823]

Context shows us that we were specifically talking about the right to determine what pronouns someone goes by: with Phoenixmgs opening that an external observer has as much right to decide as the individual does about themselves.

Context shows us that Phoenix was talking about people using pronouns to mean something different than you would intend, which is the case with lots of words. You are the one talking about rights. You are the one talking about determining other people's behaviors. Neither of us have done that, you can't just talk past people and then declare your own words "the context". That's what a strawman is, you stating what other people's arguments are, and then arguing against those instead, and pretending the real arguments aren't even there.

So we can clear that up right now: that we were in fact talking about the ability to decide; and that the 'share' analogy falls through, because Phoenixmgs was placing the external observer on an equal (or greater) footing than the individual to whom they apply. So if we were talking about shares, we'd be talking about the majority stake.

If there is anything wrong in this, other than you making up what other people think, it's that the person saying words doesn't have equal control over those words, they have 100% control over those words. Your identity has absolutely no power over what someone else says. You can choose to try to understand what they say in the way that they said it, or you can be a turd and pretend they're trying to control you by speaking different words than you would have.

What I've said is that regarding internal matters, such as gender identity, the individual is a better arbiter than an external observer-- because it is largely indicated by how the person feels.

Feel free to quote yourself.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Except they're not "from Asia", are they? What you mean is their distant ancestors were from Asia. By which standard... you and I and everyone on this board is African.



Prove it, then.



You're the one who claimed the definitions of pronouns all literally connect solely to sex. Don't do this goalpost-shifting when it turns out that's just a load of rubbish: I couldn't care less about the endless paragraphs of barely-relevant rambling.

I directly disproved what you said about "the definitions". Just acknowledge that definitions actually exist that allow for it to be connected to gender, rather than sex, and then move on.

But what is the cutoff for "they're not from..." because then anyone born in America is then just American. Can you not call a Chinese person born in America Asian? I understand there's a cutoff at some point obviously, but if they still have the traits of XYZ, what is the problem with calling them XYZ? Sure, where all humans originated from is technically true but at the same time, those identifying traits are gone (or just now traits every human has in common).

Just Google the polls...

If 2 contradictory definitions exist, why would using one or the other be an issue? I never said I was objectively RIGHT, I always said can't you understand why people would use pronouns that way.

Thus, can you leave those of us alone that use pronouns based on what you are (vs what you identify as) and agree both interpretations are correct?