08-13-2013, 01:23 PM | #1 | ||
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Gender & Gender Identity
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I'll frame the debate thusly: "Gender is something you can choose for yourself. While other factors may influence your decision, the decision is ultimately yours to make." Do you agree with or disagree with this position? Why? Just to make it quite clear what I am asking, I am not asking if you believe in transgendered states of existence. I.e. I am not asking if you believe or do not believe that someone can be born a physical man yet identify as a woman along the lines of the classic "woman trapped in a man's body". Personally, I don't even feel like that's up for debate; if you do, good for you, I guess, but that's not what I'm interested in discussing first. What I am specifically honing in on is Letter B below:
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08-13-2013, 01:47 PM | #2 |
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Gender is scientifically defined as the role a person plays in the society they live in. Believe it or not, being a drag queen is a different gender from being female, being male in America is different from being male in Japan, being a drag queen is a different gender from being male, and being male in 2013 is different from being male in 1950 or 1300.
Sex, on the other hand, is the biologically defined outward attributes (phenotype) of an individual. It has been this way since the beginning of time/the beginning of things that had chromosomes. Sometimes there is a genetic anomaly where a genetically male organism fails to develop properly and instead is automatically assigned the female sex. Those individuals are female, but may have mild complications associated with that anomaly. Attempting to insinuate that gender is fixed or that sex is changeable through means other than extremely invasive and life-changing surgery earn you negative Shuckle points. As for my personal opinion, I hate to say this but I'm on the fence. All I have to go on is "let people be people and take offense only when the situation becomes dangerous, e.g. suddenly transgender people become killer robots?" My stance on just about everything, by the way, is pretty much that last sentence only with replacements as necessary. It's a good stock sentence.
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08-13-2013, 01:56 PM | #3 |
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Either there's a crucial "would" missing from this sentence or else you're insinuating that I insinuated such things. Which is it?
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08-13-2013, 01:59 PM | #4 | |
Archbishop of Banterbury
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So my initial reaction upon opening this thread was going to be essentially "I don't care if someone wants to define themselves as man, woman or small goat from Betelgeuse IV, just let them get on with it." That's still my gut reaction. It's an extension of "don't interfere with peoples lives where it doesn't effect you". Unfortunately, sometimes this position will effect you, from a practical standpoint. What parent, for example, wants a middle aged physical male in the same open layout girls changing room at the swimming pool as their preteen daughter?
So I suppose my stance remains let people define themselves how they want - but those people who choose to define themselves against societal norms have to accept the unfortunate truth that practical concerns are going to occasionally impact their ability to exercise their identity. There are going to be situations where no matter what choice we make someone is going to be negatively impacted, and in those cases we have to choose the lesser evil, whichever that may be in whatever specific little situation we may be arguing at the time. You've chosen to identify as a woman? Sure, fine. But if you've got balls you're going to have to use the little boys room.
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Last edited by Concept; 08-13-2013 at 02:04 PM. |
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08-13-2013, 02:03 PM | #5 |
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This is very simple, and it had happened to me with a close friend, so let me show you how this works.
Friend: I have something to tell you - I'm transgender. I'm actually a guy, just not physically. I'm changing my name to (insert male name here). Me: Thanks for telling me, I appreciate the honesty and courage it took for you to open up about it. If you need anything, let me know, and good luck. Simple as that. You don't argue or say "Well, you're still a girl technically, I'm just going to call you by your REAL name..." or however. You should respect the person's choice and the courage it took for them to take that step with you, and others. You should also stop calling the person by their birth gender nouns like she/her/he/him and call them by their new identity. I think if someone tells you they feel they aren't the gender they are assigned that you should give them the benefit of the doubt even if you cannot understand it yourself and support them. I just don't really see the argument here I guess. |
08-13-2013, 02:07 PM | #6 | |
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Of course, the far simpler solution to that problem is unisex bathrooms and private changing stalls within changing rooms.
Also, 13 states have passed anti-discrimination laws permitting transgender people to use the correctly gendered changing room/bathroom, without an increase in restroom-related incidents. I even have the article to link to on hand. Quote:
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08-13-2013, 02:15 PM | #7 | |
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it's technically grammatically valid, but it's not grammatically correct because lolambiguity. my bad.
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08-13-2013, 02:19 PM | #8 | ||
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Unisex bathrooms and private changing stalls are great, except that they just don't exist everywhere. Given the existence of open layout changing rooms it seems dangerously naive not to consider them.
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08-13-2013, 02:22 PM | #9 |
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I will say though, and this will be a controversial opinion: I heard something earlier this year or last year story that was something like that there was a first grade boy who felt he was a girl and his parents were enraged because the school wouldn't let him use the girl's restroom. While I am entirely supportive of the transgender movement, I don't agree with this. I don't feel like a six year old can properly determine their gender because they don't even know what the concept of gender is. They are exposed to many different things that may influence them one way or the other - hell, when my little brother was 6 and he'd make a wish by throwing a penny in a fountain, he'd say out loud "When I grow up, I wish to be a beautiful princess!" Sure, it might be funny, but he didn't know what he was insinuating really. To him, at the time, anyone could be a princess, he had no idea what the concept of a "gender role" or a "gender identity" was. He didn't even fully understand what a "gender" was, just that there are boys and girls and nothing more.
So essentially I suppose what I'm trying to say is, and obviously I don't know the story well enough to make a huge judgment about it, but from the gist of what I have heard, I don't think parents should be trying to influence their child's gender discovery nor should anyone really be taking what a six year old says seriously. If the kid was 13? This could be a completely different discussion, as by that point in his or her life the child will be somewhat mature enough to understand genders and actually be starting to develop sexually. But until then, I think anything a young child says should be observed carefully and nothing more, because they really are not old enough yet to determine if what they are saying actually has some merit to it or if they are just confused. |
08-13-2013, 02:23 PM | #10 | |
Archbishop of Banterbury
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Similar to age laws in other areas (marriage, sex, voting, etc) this seems sensible to me.
On another note, does anyone else suspect this topic will be what our childrens generation hates about us? Like how our parent generation are more naturally homophobic than us, even if they honestly don't mean to be discriminatory, and our grandparents generation are more racist than our parents even when they honestly don't mean to be discriminatory.
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08-13-2013, 02:24 PM | #11 | |
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Or for less social stigma; if a transgender man->woman walks into the men's bathroom dressed as a woman because that's the law, everyone basically knows what's up. Some people are embarrassed about that. It's also public safety because sometimes people are jerks and will hurt or kill transgender individuals. Dear Human Race: There are SO VERY MANY OTHER THINGS TO CARE ABOUT
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08-13-2013, 02:27 PM | #12 | |
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Eh not so much. The electoral system is also hard to explain to children. Substantially harder, actually.
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08-13-2013, 02:42 PM | #13 | |
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The parents weren't influencing the child's gender by allowing the kid to be themself. Quite the opposite, really. Shutting down the child's gender self-discoveries/"experimentations" is a lot more harmful.
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08-13-2013, 02:46 PM | #14 | |
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This is where the question is coming from. You're saying that, from where you stand, you don't even see how this is up for debate, so solidly do you believe that gender identity is a matter of declarative choice. Someone can just declare "I am a woman" and you are to accept that they are a woman. That's your position. But what I'm saying, in the opening question, is that there's actually a bit of a divide over this issue and that there are a lot of people who do not believe that womanhood or manhood is something you can just choose for yourself. Either you are a man or you are not. Either you are a woman or you are not. It may not be a platform you agree with, but it's a platform that's definitely out there. In fact, I feel like it's the dominant platform out there, and is one which a good number of my own LGBT associates subscribe to. After all, if physical gender and gender identity are totally divorced entities, why do so many transgendered people feel the need to "become" a man or a woman through sex reassignment surgery? There's obviously an underlying reason for that, and that reason logically would seem to be that they reject the notion that physical gender and gender identity are completely divorced entities.
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08-13-2013, 02:50 PM | #15 |
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Well my statement of "I don't see the argument here" wasn't so much about the thread as it was "I don't understand how anyone could argue against this point". Poorly worded on my part, I apologize. I was trying to suggest arguing against someone declaring they are a different gender than what they were born as is silly and saying "anyone who wasn't born with balls or the male chromosomes isn't/can't be a man, plain and simple" is also silly.
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08-13-2013, 02:58 PM | #16 |
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Is it silly to forcibly escort a white man of 35 to the local psychiatric hospital if he is claiming to be Mary, Queen of Scots?
Is it silly to forcibly [...] if he is claiming to be an alien? Is it silly to forcibly [...] if he is claiming to be a black elderly woman? Black woman? Elderly woman? Black? Elderly? Woman? At what point does it quit being a matter of choice and start becoming a suspected psychiatric episode? The point here being, I doubt you categorically support all claims to womanhood. You likely have some criteria which must be met before you accept the other party's claims. No?
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08-13-2013, 03:26 PM | #17 |
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Why should I? If someone biologically born a man claims she is a woman, should I not accept that and move on? What kind of "criteria" could someone possibly have to meet for me to accept their claim? Being transgender is being transgender, nothing more to it than that. I think it's a fairly simple claim to make, and all it boils down to at that point is you trust the person is telling you the truth and not just messing with you.
I feel like the rest of your examples are seriously apples and... pears. I understand what you are trying to argue, but it's out of bounds. Gender can be a completely different thing on a mental level or even dare I say a spiritual level than it is on a physical one. What makes someone black? The amount of melanin in their skin. There's nothing more to it. Black people are just people. If you claim to be a black person when you're not, that's a completely different issue because there doesn't exist someone who is "black on a mental level", that just doesn't make sense. If you are considering stereotypical mannerisms, quirks, or other things that may be associated with black culture, it's not "theirs" exclusively, anyone can pick up on those and not be outcast or looked at oddly. Elderly? This is just silly. We know that an elderly person is someone who is old or has lived a long life. That's it. You can't just "claim" this. I see what you're trying to do "but it's the same with genders!" No, it really isn't. "Well 100 years ago someone would have grouped those all together and said the same thing". But we have a better understanding now of what defines a gender and what it means. Gender doesn't equal genitalia type. While that is your sex, biologically, your gender transcends your sex. It is who you mentally identify as in terms of societal and cultural gender roles. Comparing the mannerisms of a woman in society to the mannerisms of an elderly person or a black person is silly. Anyone of any skin color can pick up the mannerisms or quirks stereotypically associated with another race and most people won't think a second thought, because it's not seen as something restricted to only black people or what have you. But for a male to pick up on the quirks stereotypically assigned to women and vice versa, people are either going to think you're gay or you're odd. The point of identifying as another gender mentally is to somewhat counteract that, but also because it's like walking around in a shoe 2 sizes too small. It's uncomfortable, it doesn't feel right, and you just want to take them off and find the one that fits you - but for them, the shoe is their birth gender or the gender society assigns to them based on how they look or their sex. Thus, gender is not something that can or should be equated with someone mentally claiming to be a black person or an elderly person. That just doesn't make any sense.' Last edited by deoxys; 08-13-2013 at 04:31 PM. Reason: Accidentally wrote "melatonin" instead of "melanin" |
08-13-2013, 04:17 PM | #18 |
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Hmm, not sure that I would automatically equate 'elderly' to 'having lived a long time'.
I tend to stay out of these kinds of discussions because this kind of stuff is really just the ice on the surface of a really, really deep hole which goes down to the very root of what it means to exist and that's a hole that I like to keep a comfortable distance from, for now. |
08-13-2013, 04:19 PM | #19 |
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What's fun is that both gender and sex are false dichotomies, entirely independently of each other. There are more than two biological sexes and there are (far) more than two constructed genders. Now, I've never really had a problem with the concept of mismatching the two (I did read Famous Five books after all) and I understand the idea of multiple genders. It's much like sexuality or politics; there are not two sexualities. There is not a divide between liberals and conservatives in America. It is not a case of West vs East in geopolitical terms. This isn't a hard concept for me and I struggle to see why anyone with a bit of education and world knowledge would find it so. But I also understand the fairly epic cultural norms we've built up around them in much of the West. It's a hard thing, much like accepting that homosexuality is not a sin or that it's ok for your kid to marry a Muslim.
As for people wanting to transfer, to be honest it does weird me out a little but simply because I find it hard to empathise with not knowing your identity. It's in much the same way that sexual intercourse between two men weirds me out a bit; I have no problem with homosexuality but I don't want to picture two guys doing stuff, thanks. In the same way, I don't really want to wrap my head around a guy with man parts choosing to swap over. Or a woman choosing to become a man and then swap back. If someone wants to, they should be able to, but I don;t really want to have to think about it. |
08-13-2013, 04:36 PM | #21 |
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No, it's not that cut and dry. You may not understand it because it hasn't happened to you in particular, but a lot of people literally do not feel comfortable in their own skin. They feel like their assigned sex was a mistake. Just because you were born with a dick doesn't mean you aren't a woman in terms of your gender and vice versa.
Do you believe my friend isn't a man because that's what he identifies as even though he was born with a vagina? Do you believe he should be called by his female given name as opposed to his newly changed male name? |
08-13-2013, 04:40 PM | #22 |
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I'm with Concept on this one, but I won't say any more in effort to not be dragged into this.
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08-13-2013, 04:46 PM | #23 |
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I don’t really have a strong opinion toward this. I think everyone should be treated equally and nobody should be discriminated for their sexuality. However I’ve been to a gay bar on a drag night and one of my (female) friends didn’t like how a load of men dressed as women were using the female toilets and I do agree that it could make women who aren’t homophobic or transphobic feel uncomfortable.
I'll agree that statements like "Men have penises, women have vaginas" are utter bullshit. Unfortunetly not that many people can empathise with transgendered people as they're far less common than gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
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08-13-2013, 05:02 PM | #24 |
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I think you're right and I done know what I'm talking about.
I just have trouble seeing it since it hasn't happened to me out someone that I know.
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08-13-2013, 05:22 PM | #25 | |
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In transgender discussion, people may distinguish between a man who claims to be a woman trapped in a man's body and a man who doesn't say that but simply expresses a desire, a wish, to be a woman. You don't appear to make any distinction there, and not everyone does; but you're also flatly rejecting out of hand anyone who does as crazy. Putting aside that that's not very nice ^^; , it's also not really very helpful for actually debating the matter. You have yet to satisfactorily explain why gender is in a different category from race, ethnicity, or other things you are usually born with or born into. (Emphasis on the satisfactorily. You've certainly tried to explain why you feel the way you feel, but I don't think it's been that persuasive. I can't imagine it would persuade people who flatly reject your own views as liberal lunacy.)
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