Poll: Gender recognition offence

[Something Amyss]

I tend to blame this on total, absolute, toxic self-absorption. I think some people are so obsessed with themselves and with being indulged in as many ways as possible that they develop a weird, warping filter in their brains (kind of like Cartman's filter in the episode about fish dicks) so that when a trans person says, "This is who I am," what that kind of person actually hears is, "I demand the right to usurp your very brain and command it to say and think whatever I say!"

I'm not sure there's any useful application for that knowledge even if my suspicion is right, but I definitely believe there's a warped perspective going on.

In my experience, a lot of it comes down to groups of people for which the world largely revolves around. Or, at least, the only parts that are said to matter. I imagine when one is made to be the center of everything and then someone else starts getting consideration, it's a pretty big deal to them. I imagine this falls into the description of "toxic self absorption" quite well, so I thjink we're on roughly the same page, albeit possible from different angles.

Generally, we just want the same treatment other people get. Well, not me. I want to be treated with equal parts awe and terror as I grind the world under my boot, laughing like a cartoon villain all the way.

<.<

But I'm a little weird, so.

 

[9tailedflame]

All it really is, is a few stereotypes people decided are important for some reason. It's like identifying as black if you eat fried chicken, or identifying as white if you drive a hybrid. it's really just offensive and absurd when you actually start to think about it.

Okay, I know you're not talking about me specifically, but I'm curious, so humour me. What stereotypes do you think I'm looking for when I say I'm trans and wish to be called a woman?

This is especially of interest to me because I finally came out to a friend I've known for ages and ages today, and he was surprised because I seem like "a typical guy." I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, but I certainly seem to swing a lot more towards interests, hobbies, and behaviours that are coded masculine in society than the feminine ones. I could probably run off a pretty long list of "guy" things I do, while feminine interests probably take me less than the number of fingers I have to count. Gender stereotypes actually seem to work against me, and against a lot of the trans people I've known in my life. We run the spectrum, kinda like everyone else.

It seems what I get in terms of stereotypes is rather 100% external. People's expectations of me seem to colour their interpetation of the things I do. The difference in how I'm treated can be as small as say, using a masclunine-sounding username as opposed to an ambiguous or feminine sounding one. With that little information, I find that people read a lot into my identity and actions. And I bet this is true for a lot of people. Thanks to the nature of internet identity, not even necessarily trans people.

But if you could elaborate further on what stereotypes I am stereotyping myself with, I'd be interested. But it seems to me that if I wanted to stereotype myself based on gender/social expectations, I'd call myself a guy.

It's respecting their wishes.

This. And considering how ultimately little effort it requires, it seems an odd sticking point for there to be such an issue.

Do your studies actually specify the number of confirmed hate crimes in those figures?

Hate crimes are hard to nail down in part because trans panic is still a legal defense in 49 of 50 states. While it's not a frequently tried defense in court, there's a sort of well poisoning like "stand your ground" in that once the issue is brought up, it seems authorities are less likely out outright unlikely to look further. There have been a few instances to come across my desk where it took a concerted effort (essentially a PR campaign) to get police to even look into the death of a trans person or people. This is why I compare to to Stand Your Ground, because we get cases like the Trayvon Martin one where the cops simply don't collect evidence. And I don't want to veer too far off the current topic, so I'll leave it at that. The point is, it's hard to collect evidence if you're not looking for it.

This also used to be the standard for gays, and it's slowly changing.

"hellspawn"

Hey, for some of us, that's accurate!

Granted, it's an offensive stereotype that all trans people are children of one of the 13 rulers of Hell. Only the best are.

<.<

First, i just want to be clear that it's not only trans people who are following steryotypes, but cis people as well. I 100% support anyone's decision to identify as they want, i just think that the notion of gender as a whole is a flawed one. Anyway, my point i guess is that there has to be some reasoning in why you identify the way you do, right? If there wasn't some reasoning behind why you identify as trans, you'd largely default to cis, since cis is regarded socially as the default, right? If you have reasoning for identifying as a woman, wouldn't that be influenced by what you perceive womanhood to be? After all, it's hard to identify as something if you have no perception of it, right? And wouldn't that perception of womanhood largely be based on stereotypes? What else could a perception of something so broad be based on?

I don't know you well enough to make any assumptions, but i would be interested as to why you identify as a woman. I hope you don't think i'm trying to be mean or aggressive about this, i'm really not, i'm just not sure how someone forms a concept of a gender without stereotypes, and i would actually legitimately appreciate some reasoning if there is any, you don't have to have any reason for identifying the way you do of course, but if there is any, it might help me get a better grasp on the subject in general.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

I don't know where the x10 and x40 KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime used come from, but all the rest were from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, they deal specifically with hate crimes and only hate crimes.

Second and third hand statistics partially, but also based on math from a more realistic analysis of the common "1 in 12 chance" incidents in murder over the course of our lives, made by the HRC. I scoured for the original source, but alas came up empty. I may have misquoted too.

1 in 12 is nonsense, that would put the murder rate for transgender people around x1600 of the national average. I do not believe that for one second.

The problem is that data is just not collected. It's a chicken and egg problem. People often wont take the problem seriously until they can be given statistics that show it is serious, and because people don't take it seriously no data is collected so not statistics can be given.

In fact, hate crimes are generally thought to be massively under reported as a rule. The FBI logged just under 6000 hate crimes in 2012, but experts in the field generally agree that closer to 200,000-300,000 occurred that year in the US. That is at least a factor of 30. And it is also known that hate crimes against trans people are even less likely to be reported.

There are all sorts of reasons for this. Many law enforcement organizations refuse to participate in reporting hate crimes. Hawaii, for example, just doesn't report them at all. Same with Miami. Most states in the deep south officially have massively lower hate crime rates than the national average, some of them reporting a number of incidents in the single digits.

Another reason is that people who are victims of hate crimes often do not report the crime at all because they run the risk of further victimization if they do. We have better data on this. For people who chose to report the crime, a staggering 27.36% of them will experience open hostility and misconduct from the police, and it isn't just relatively "light" stuff like verbal abuse. Physical violence is common (~14% of misconduct), so is being unjustly arrested (~16% of misconduct), and sexual violence also occurs in notable numbers (~4% of misconduct).

These numbers are all significantly higher for transgender people. For example, trans people in particular are 4.6 times more likely to experience police violence when reporting a crime than cis survivors of hate crimes. So reporting a crime is a serious gamble. Overall the rate is about 5% of lgbtq people who report a hate crime will be the victim of another violent crime at the hands of the police, and that number is several times higher for trans people (the exact number is not given) and the narratives of such crimes suggest the crimes against trans people tend to be particularly brutal.

The take away message most trans people get is that you don't risk interaction with the police if you can possibly help it.

So under reporting is a massive problem.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I don't know where the x10 and x40 KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime used come from, but all the rest were from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, they deal specifically with hate crimes and only hate crimes.

Second and third hand statistics partially, but also based on math from a more realistic analysis of the common "1 in 12 chance" incidents in murder over the course of our lives, made by the HRC. I scoured for the original source, but alas came up empty. I may have misquoted too.

1 in 12 is nonsense, that would put the murder rate for transgender people around x1600 of the national average. I do not believe that for one second.

Spoiler

The problem is that data is just not collected. It's a chicken and egg problem. People often wont take the problem seriously until they can be given statistics that show it is serious, and because people don't take it seriously no data is collected so not statistics can be given.

In fact, hate crimes are generally thought to be massively under reported as a rule. The FBI logged just under 6000 hate crimes in 2012, but experts in the field generally agree that closer to 200,000-300,000 occurred that year in the US. That is at least a factor of 30. And it is also known that hate crimes against trans people are even less likely to be reported.

There are all sorts of reasons for this. Many law enforcement organizations refuse to participate in reporting hate crimes. Hawaii, for example, just doesn't report them at all. Same with Miami. Most states in the deep south officially have massively lower hate crime rates than the national average, some of them reporting a number of incidents in the single digits.

Another reason is that people who are victims of hate crimes often do not report the crime at all because they run the risk of further victimization if they do. We have better data on this. For people who chose to report the crime, a staggering 27.36% of them will experience open hostility and misconduct from the police, and it isn't just relatively "light" stuff like verbal abuse. Physical violence is common (~14% of misconduct), so is being unjustly arrested (~16% of misconduct), and sexual violence also occurs in notable numbers (~4% of misconduct).

These numbers are all significantly higher for transgender people. For example, trans people in particular are 4.6 times more likely to experience police violence when reporting a crime than cis survivors of hate crimes. So reporting a crime is a serious gamble. Overall the rate is about 5% of lgbtq people who report a hate crime will be the victim of another violent crime at the hands of the police, and that number is several times higher for trans people (the exact number is not given) and the narratives of such crimes suggest the crimes against trans people tend to be particularly brutal.

The take away message most trans people get is that you don't risk interaction with the police if you can possibly help it.

So under reporting is a massive problem.

Well the math I was talking about was designed to debunk the 1 in 12 chance over a life time HRC statistic.

Anyways you're preaching to the choir on the under reporting problem, especially when it comes to trans folk.

 

[Something Amyss]

First, i just want to be clear that it's not only trans people who are following steryotypes, but cis people as well. I 100% support anyone's decision to identify as they want, i just think that the notion of gender as a whole is a flawed one. Anyway, my point i guess is that there has to be some reasoning in why you identify the way you do, right? If there wasn't some reasoning behind why you identify as trans, you'd largely default to cis, since cis is regarded socially as the default, right? If you have reasoning for identifying as a woman, wouldn't that be influenced by what you perceive womanhood to be? After all, it's hard to identify as something if you have no perception of it, right? And wouldn't that perception of womanhood largely be based on stereotypes? What else could a perception of something so broad be based on?

I don't know you well enough to make any assumptions, but i would be interested as to why you identify as a woman. I hope you don't think i'm trying to be mean or aggressive about this, i'm really not, i'm just not sure how someone forms a concept of a gender without stereotypes, and i would actually legitimately appreciate some reasoning if there is any, you don't have to have any reason for identifying the way you do of course, but if there is any, it might help me get a better grasp on the subject in general.

Fair enough. I'll try to explain it as best I can, and hopefully I don't come off poorly in the process. Because I'm really not looking for a fight, I was just kind of confused as to this notion of stereotypes.

First off, I do feel like I should say that I speak for me only in terms of specifics. I can point to general things, or even to anecdotes from other trans people I know, but I'm the only person for which I can speak with authority on what they think and feel. There are other people who may or do not fit in with things I'm about to say, and that's fine. I don't even necessarily think they're wrong, but again, speaking for me.

Also, this may be a particularly weird POV, in part because while I am not a man, years of social conditioning have made me feel like calling myself a woman is encroaching on the "real" women.

Anyway, my point i guess is that there has to be some reasoning in why you identify the way you do, right?

The reasoning is that there exists a disconnect between my body and my sense of self. Since I recently kicked a hornet's nest about some related concepts, I'll try and avert bringing that into this thread by pointing out that I'm not really concerned with the precise mechanism that causes this. It exists, and that's enough.

Now, I suppose if you want to get super technical, any description of myself as a woman is tied to a social construct, because of the use of language. Thing is, I'm not even particularly interested in that. My physiology is male and whatever it is that makes me "me"--whether someone thinks it's my brain, my soul, my sense of identity or whatever else--says I should not be. Linguistically, we codify the body that I want/feel I should have/what have you as "female" or a "woman's" body (and, admittedly, somewhat idealised would be preferable, but not necessary). That is technically a social construct and stereotyping, but that's dicing things very fine. I'm more concerned with feeling right than specific pronouns and labels, but I admit that it is a signifier of social acceptance for those terms to be used, and damn if I didn't squee when a friend of 20 years called me "her" without any specific prompting. Well, outside of me saying I was trans.

There are certianly social elements. I would ideally like to fit within the social standards of Western beauty, in part because I crave normalcy. Also, because being trans, especially being identifiably so, puts a target on your head in our culture. But this is a very loose sense, and beyond the loosest sense, I don't know that I qualify.

The analogy that keeps coming to mind is being gay. Now, we have certain cultural ideas of what a gay person might do, what they might look like, etc. Even if you don't hold those ideals yourself, you probably have an idea of at least a few of them. A lot of people may be looked at as gay due to meeting these criteria socially (and we have a field day trying to decide if historical figures were gay), but if you're not someone with same-sex attractions, it doesn't really matter. Now, there may be overlap--many gays do meet some or all of these criteria. I would argue that this is more nurture than nature, and I would argue that with a lot of our ideas of gender roles as well. But a gay man is gay whether he meets any of those social criteria or not.

Personally, I do fit into some of the stereotypes, but I don't think that informs my gender identity any. In fact, a lot of those things post-date my awareness of being trans (though I didn't know the term, because I hadn't even entered kindergarten yet) and some may be informed by my desire to blend in with the "real" girls. It's actually interesting to me because I wonder if I'd still be me without associated programming that comes from being raised as a boy or not. I'm inclined to think I would have similar interests, though maybe not the same. My little brother loves to cook and sew and knit. While I was playing with Transformers, he was playing with She-Rah and had Rainbow Brite stuff. Like, I doubt you would consider him a girl. And as far as I know, he's the cisgender one in the family. I can't rule out he isn't also hiding, but for the time being I'm forced to go with "not a girl." He's also straight, as far as I know. But he is waaaaaaaaaaay more effeminate than me. See, this is the sort of thing that comes to mind when talking about gender and stereotypes. And, I mean, I don't think these things should be gendered in the first place: I don't give a crap if my brother fits into a world thats coded "girly" or "gay." I'm fine with him being true to himself and doing the things he likes (the irony, of course, is the fear that he won't feel the same). And it's not even like we're polar opposites--at Thanksgiving, his wife decided to point out how similar we are. And in some cases, that is true. But, I mean, like, if you were to look at our childhood toys and ask which one of us was the girl, I'm betting most people would point at him.

And that's when I pull this out:


(Sorry, I am taking you seriously, but the late hour is making me a little silly)

Anyway, I think I'm meandering a bit too much. It's after 3 AM where I am and I'm tired but I can't sleep because reasons.If any of this is unclear, feel free to let me know.

So, had I been born physiologically female, but no other differences existed in my personality? I'm pretty sure I'd still be the one who was more interested in the action and the giant stompy robots and such. My parents at the very least didn't try and force their son to be more of a boy.

So, what makes me trans? I feel dysphoria with the "maleness" of my body and wish to have that corrected. Actually, what I wish involves a time machine and Star Trek technology, but I'm a slightly realistic individual. So barring that, there are things like hormones and surgery which can make me feel normal. I don't really think someone needs to go that far, but this is what informs my sense of "womanhood." But I'm not even sure I'd consider that "womanhood." Closer to "Amysshood."

Does that mean I'm ambivalent to the social elements? Not really. I would like to be accepted in society, rather than being treated as some sick perverted freak, but I don't think that's what you mean. I call myself a woman because it's descriptive, rather than prescriptive. I dislike being called a man, and I dislike use of my birth name, but these are things associated with a condition that causes me no end of anxiety, depression, etc. I love it when people call me Amy and/or "she," because this signifies acceptance or at least a basic level of respect. And I don't think any of that's what you mean, but I'm still not exactly sure what you do mean.

One of the first things I told the friend I referenced previously was that I was still exactly the same person they were talking to two minutes before. From his frame of reference, this may be an exaggeration (after all, he has found out things he's said in the past are things I don't like), but I'm the exact person he's been friends with for a couple decades now.

It's just that 24 hours ago, he thought the "guy" who had his back in high school and went out drinking with him and played hours of video games and tabletop RPGs with him and was in his wedding party (and despite my apprehension about the title, would have been his "best man" had he asked) and thousands of other things was a man. And now he knows she isn't. A lot of my best friends are guys, largely because we share the same interests. A lot of my girl friends are tomboys, though masculine-coded interests aren't a requirement for me to like you. But they're the people I fell in with because of shared interest, which goes back to my point about how these social elements swing more masculine for me. I want to keep doing the things I do with the people I call friends. Just in a body that doesn't freak me out.

But again, I'm not sure if this meets your criteria or not. Perhaps, given this much information (provided the end result is coherent), you can give me a better idea of whether it does fit. I don't know. I feel I've answered to the best of my ability. Especially given it's now 4 AM and I'm a little loopy.

I'd also add, I guess as a followup, that I'm largely unconcerned with gender as a notion in terms of gender roles and societal perceptions. I have always been fairly nonconforming to any (overall trend of) gender stereotypes, and have always felt free to do my own thing. That thing often swings to our culture's idea of masculine, and that's fine. I'm fine with men liking girly things and women liking manly things or not as they see fit. And I'd rather living in a world where those preconceptions didn't exist (or at least, didn't rule us). And I'm pretty sure I'd still hang with the people who shared my interests.

 

[mrgerry123]

I use they and them if a person requests me to. However I dislike using them as they are plural pronouns and a non binary person is (I believe) singular. In an ideal world we would create a new gender neutral singular pronoun. Or just use it. Why don't we?

 

[celeritas]

Honestly, there is not rationally cogent part of your argument. Try this: provide a singular consistent defnition of female or male which all men and women can agree on, but which is not biological. It's an honest challenge: what, if not biological sex, defines say 'a women'? Is it physical attraction to men? If so, then are lesbians not women? Is it the ability to have children and where does that leave women with fertility issues? Is it a penchant for flowers, chocolate or romantic comedies?

The immediate and insurmountable wall you hit is that no social definition of man or woman can be offered that does not in some way imply a limit on them. It's not a 'trans exclusionary radicial feminist' ideal - it's the basic premise of gender equality: my sex shouldn't dicate who I can be or what I can do. This isn't some radical fringe, it's a core tennet.

When vocale individuals like Caitlyn Jenner tell the world that they feel like they can finally 'wear nail' polish now that they've transitioned, they send out the message that as a man they couldn't. They tell men everywhere who might quite like to wear nail polish that actually, they're not men, they were born 'in the wrong body'. I don't know what qualifies as 'invalidating' a person, but I'm pretty sure this would also.

None of this ignores the issues of gender identity disorder, but it doesn't need to. There two ways to look at the issue: either a person feels unable to express themselves in a certain manner because of prevailing gender stereotypes, or they feel a disassociation from certain aspects of their physiology. If the former, then working to demolish gender stereotypes is the major step forward (look at how far women have come in a century - it's not the impossible feat you want it to be)if it's the latter (which may well be the result of sociological pressures in the first place) then we don't have a gender phenomenon so much as a straight forward issue of BDD or a more nuanced dissociative disorder (neither of which are generally treated by reinforcing the person's beliefs).

It's really that simply. Trans, by definition, reinforces gender stereotypes to the extent that they believe them to be more compeeling even than biology. You might think the goal of breaking down gender roles and giving people more freedom to be whoever they want to be without feeling as though they're limited by their genes is unrealistic, but it's not.

This is the same battle that gay people fought: that their desires and expressions did not align with accepted stereotypes about their gender and even today, society still fights for this balance casting gay men as 'camp' and lesbians as 'butch' and by assuming '*****' and 'butch' M/F roles in homosexual relationships, even though this is simply not true. The solution wasn't that gay men needed to be 'women' or lesbians needed to live as 'men', it was simply that our understanding of what constitutes a 'man' and a 'women' needed to change and gradually it has and in time it will continue to do so.

If you want to prove me wrong, just give me that definition of men or women that isn't biological and my argument no longer makes sense.

 

[chocolate pickles]

If you have the physical characteristics of a man/woman, then you are a man/woman. That is simple biological fact. I don't care what you 'think' you are, the facts are there. Gender is not some kind of social construct. By this tumblr-BS, you should all acknowledge me as a lizard. What? I feel like one.

 

[SecondPrize]

If someone's going to be a giant ass about a mistake, which is what I think you're getting at here, then I'll be a ************ right back. If they simply correct my mistake I'll apologize for it and never repeat it. Do unto others... goes both ways, nice people get treated well and dicks get the same in return.

 

[JimB]

Honestly, there is not [a] rationally cogent part of your argument.

Whose argument? To whom are you talking?

Try this: provide a singular consistent definition of female or male which all men and women can agree on, but which is not biological. It's an honest challenge.

No, it's not. Demanding that all seven-point-whatever billion human beings in existence agree on a word's definition before it be validated is nonsense, because by those same rules you just set, "female" is not defined by biological factors. I disagree with your assertion that it is; therefore, since even one person disagrees, your definition is invalid.

The immediate and insurmountable wall you hit is that no social definition of man or woman can be offered that does not in some way imply a limit on them.

That is not a problem. That is an inherent condition of nouns. If I define my nightstand as a nightstand, then I am limiting it from also being a cat or a hamburger or a Volkswagen. The entire concept of definition, not just linguistically but along any axis, depends on setting limitations.

When vocal individuals like Caitlyn Jenner tell the world that they feel like they can finally 'wear nail' polish now that they've transitioned, they send out the message that as a man they couldn't. They tell men everywhere who might quite like to wear nail polish that actually, they're not men, they were born 'in the wrong body.'

I haven't seen the interview you're referring to, so all I can say is, if this is literally what she said with nothing else attached, then you need to work on your comprehension, celeritas. "I feel I can" does not mean "You must not." If it did, then when I fall asleep every night to ASMR videos, I'm telling you you're not allowed to sleep unless you're doing the same thing.

Quite frankly, I think this is a case of "No one fears theft like a thief." You can to this thread to dictate to other people what they are required to perceive themselves as, and now you're insisting trans people are doing it to you. It's disingenuous and blatant. Please knock it off.

Trans, by definition, reinforces gender stereotypes to the extent that they believe them to be more compelling even than biology.

People want boundaries to set for themselves, because boundaries provide definition. You have extremely little business telling others they're required for their own good to accept your anarchistic approach to the topic, that they have to "tear it all down wooo," because this sudden change of tactic--that you're just trying to help trans people by enlightening them and tearing down the oppressing social structure--comes much too late after your cold, snide dismissals based on bad science to read with any kind of authenticity.

If you want to prove me wrong, just give me that definition of men or women that isn't biological and my argument no longer makes sense.

Man: An adult person who identifies as a man.
Woman: An adult person who identifies as a woman.

Happy to help out.

 

[JimB]

Gender is not some kind of social construct.

The field of social sciences has been recognizing the difference between sex and gender for nearly forty-five years. If you know better than common, peer-reviewed consensus among a specific scientific discipline, then I invite you to tell us your credentials and show us your data.

By this Tumblr-BS, you should all acknowledge me as a lizard. What? I feel like one.

Sure, I'll call you a lizard if you want me to call you a lizard. Doesn't cost me anything to do; why wouldn't I? How's it hanging, my lizard? Are you a specific lizard, or just generically four-legged and reptilian?

 

[Akjosch]

If you have the physical characteristics of a man/woman, ...

Good luck getting that info for anyone. Hell, I don't even know mine. Nor do I care. It's only something that has any significance for the rare few diseases where having a functioning Y-chromosome means you're either lucky or get shafted (didn't happen to me yet) or when trying to produce biological offspring (I don't).

 

[JimB]

I tend to blame this on total, absolute, toxic self-absorption. I think some people are so obsessed with themselves and with being indulged in as many ways as possible that they develop a weird, warping filter in their brains (kind of like Cartman's filter in the episode about fish dicks) so that when a trans person says, "This is who I am," what that kind of person actually hears is, "I demand the right to usurp your very brain and command it to say and think whatever I say!"

I'm not sure there's any useful application for that knowledge even if my suspicion is right, but I definitely believe there's a warped perspective going on.

In my experience, a lot of it comes down to groups of people for which the world largely revolves around. Or, at least, the only parts that are said to matter. I imagine when one is made to be the center of everything and then someone else starts getting consideration, it's a pretty big deal to them. I imagine this falls into the description of "toxic self absorption" quite well, so I think we're on roughly the same page, albeit possible from different angles.

I agree with you about the source of this toxic self-absorption. I just didn't mention it because, in this specific instance of people on the internet crowing about how they get to decide what gender you personally are, I don't care about the whys of it; I just care about the what, because that is the part I have to deal with. If we were in the real world, where people weren't being emboldened and calloused by their inability to look people in the eye and feel shame at themselves for what they do, then I'd be rather more compassionate about the why; but online? Nope.

 

[Lictor Face]

If you want to prove me wrong, just give me that definition of men or women that isn't biological and my argument no longer makes sense.

Man: An adult person who identifies as a man.
Woman: An adult person who identifies as a woman.

Happy to help out.

Isn't a biologically male person who identifies himself as a woman wrong? Or is he also correct because he defines who he is and not biological requisites?

 

[Something Amyss]

I agree with you about the source of this toxic self-absorption. I just didn't mention it because, in this specific instance of people on the internet crowing about how they get to decide what gender you personally are, I don't care about the whys of it; I just care about the what, because that is the part I have to deal with. If we were in the real world, where people weren't being emboldened and calloused by their inability to look people in the eye and feel shame at themselves for what they do, then I'd be rather more compassionate about the why; but online? Nope.

You have a point. I'm just always curious how people tick, and so I guess my mind goes there. Though I really do have to deal with these attitudes in real life, and from people who carry these attitude they have online offline.

...actually, I kind of prefer the internet, because people, emboldened by both anonymity and mob mentality, tend to become a lot easier to spot. It's a lot harder when you don't know who you can trust.

 

[01189998819991197253]

Having read this thread in its entirety, I think this new study would be well suited to it.

http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2015/11/brains-men-and-women-aren-t-really-different-study-finds

In the mid-19th century, researchers claimed they could tell the sex of an individual just by looking at their disembodied brain. But a new study finds that human brains do not fit neatly into ?male? and ?female? categories. Indeed, all of our brains seem to share a patchwork of forms; some that are more common in males, others that are more common in females, and some that are common to both. The findings could change how scientists study the brain and even how society defines gender.

For the purposes of this debate, it might be worth accepting how little we understand the brain and stop talking about "male and female brains". It's bullshit, and known to be bullshit for a while. It might also be good to stop pretending that humans are not what we obviously are, and that's more continuum than discrete when it comes to a lot of things. Most things perhaps.

Male and Female brains are nonsense, Male and Female hormones on the other hand.

No getting around them, and there is probably a limit to the plasticity of the brain after early childhood too.

If you want to prove me wrong, just give me that definition of men or women that isn't biological and my argument no longer makes sense.

Man: An adult person who identifies as a man.
Woman: An adult person who identifies as a woman.

Happy to help out.

Isn't a biologically male person who identifies himself as a woman wrong? Or is he also correct because he defines who he is and not biological requisites?

Who cares if they're right or wrong? This isn't about being a dick and correcting people for no reason after all.

 

[Biran53]

Honestly, I don't see the issue.

I have encountered several transgender folks in my travels, and I have never been "shamed" for "offence", 'cause common courtesy and decency is NOT a hard thing to do. Why the hell would you go up to random people and go "ohhh you MALE", "ohhh you FEMALE". That's ridiculous.

How is this something that inconveniences you?

 

[JimB]

Isn't a biologically male person who identifies himself as a woman wrong?

Wrong by what standard? I personally define right and wrong, correct and incorrect, with a heavy component of how much harm is done by a conclusion. Whom is being hurt by this biological man identifying as a woman? What is the specific nature of the harm done? So far as I'm aware, the trans person is helped by that identification (it helps to resolve her gender dysphoria), and the only people who are hurt are people who get offended on pedantic or didactic levels, which I simply do not care about. So no, that hypothetical woman calling herself a woman is not, by any estimation I place value in, wrong.

Or is he also correct because he defines who he is and not biological requisites?

We do not currently possess language to cleanly describe a person based on gender identity; that is, "woman" is required for both a biological woman and a trans woman. I am not personally convinced we need a word to distinguish between the two (for instance, a biological woman being a woman and a trans woman being a gurblefletch or something), because the only benefit I see to drawing a distinction is for diagnostic purposes; i.e., whether the trans woman has a particular condition related to her biology.

Until and unless such distinction-drawing language is drafted, I don't see a point to using biology as the sole factor in determining if someone is a woman, so I think someone who ignores her biology to express herself as a woman and thereby claim the title of "woman" is right to do so.

 

[01189998819991197253]

Honestly, I don't see the issue.

I have encountered several transgender folks in my travels, and I have never been "shamed" for "offence", 'cause common courtesy and decency is NOT a hard thing to do. Why the hell would you go up to random people and go "ohhh you MALE", "ohhh you FEMALE". That's ridiculous.

How is this something that inconveniences you?

I think we're all still supposed to be reeling from the fiction story on the first page. "Trannies are gunna hurt our feelings if we can't guess their gender, and they'll MAKE US DO IT!!!" seems to be the underlying theme. I'm a pretty open minded person, lived East and West coast, and afaik never had a conversation with a transexual person. If I did, they were passing and I would have gone with the gender I assumed they were, and from their perspective they are.

There are always the, "You'd be mistreated in a gay bar!" stories though. They're essential fictions to maintaining a hateful myth.

 

[JimB]

I kind of prefer the internet, because people, emboldened by both anonymity and mob mentality, tend to become a lot easier to spot. It's a lot harder when you don't know who you can trust.

That's true. I often forget that for me, this is an issue of simple respect and human courtesy, but for the trans community, there are real safety concerns involved. Thank you for the reminder.