The issue I have with pronouns

[Israfil]

4 minutes ago, Jannes said:

If people use pronouns to refer to a different gender then their biological one because then you need to communicate that and remember it. 

I agree. From a high-level perspective your identity is not important. From a low-level one, it is. That is an issue strictly for stage green. I wouldn't deny a trans person being called some pronouns that they choose, but I don't really see how pronouns are that relevant. In many perspectives, they're simply a language structure that simplifies discourse. Today they've become an important aspect of some people's identities, and I respect this as part of their personal development. I just don't care enough about it to push that change to the larger public. The people that still don't understand this are in their own developmental staircase, and shouldn't be trampled over too. Every change like this is gradual and society will figure this with time and open discussion. 

[Thought Art]

On 2023-04-23 at 2:45 PM, Jannes said:

Although I do think that pronouns are important especially for trans people I also have an issue with using pronouns more than is absolutely necessary. 

The reason is that it makes gender important again. 

The war that we want to fight is to remove stereotypes about biological women and men right?

 

What’s wrong with being an actual man or woman? I’m starting to push back against this narrative that man and women are bad, and trans is good. This is non-sense. 

Gender and sexual identity is important to many if not most people. 
 

Yes, culture will continue to evolve over time. We will change and grow. However, extreme liberalism has many risks associated with it.

If it’s important for a trans person to express themselves, have their labels the same is probably true for ordinary folks as well. 

It’s important young men learn to be young men, and young women young women. 
 

and, for people who find themselves outside of that duality it’s fine as well. They learn to do their thing too. 
 

But, I don’t think… though I may be wrong that we all need to rewrite our understanding entirely. 
 

this being said with understanding of degrees, difference, sameness, duality, etc 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Thought Art

[DrugsBunny]

1 hour ago, Thought Art said:

It’s important young men learn to be young men, and young women young women. 

This is such an unfortunate default position lent merit only by uncritical groupthink. Men or women who are comfortable being masculine or feminine and fulfilling their default gender role in a traditional way should do that, and if that's not their easiest expression of gender then to hell with the rigid conformity.

This is such a silly narrative which you certainly have no objective data to support, but if you're looking to make the likes of Jordan Peterson proud, then I suppose you're on the right track.

[Thought Art]

@DrugsBunny Okay, when you cherry pick one sentence you miss a lot of what I said. 

Read my post again. I clearly said those who don’t fit, should find healthy expression of their unique identity. I am fully aware of the diverse expression humans are capable.
 

However, MOST HUMANS feel comfortable with their body’s and their gender which is normal, healthy, and ideal.
 

The issue I have here is militant, aggressive, ignorant and foolish way pro trans people look at politics, society, conflict, differing opinions, science, etc… it’s not healthy. 
 

Men and women, and calling them thus is a fine thing to do. I am a man, and I’m fact and working on being a better man. What is a man? That’s also a complicated issue. What is a man? What is a woman? What is gender? What is sex? These concepts are not obvious. But, I am a man and enjoy it.
 

It’s also ideal we respect people who don’t fit into gender norms either. But, people do not need to bend their knee to ideologues. Not bending my knee to trans idealogy in every single way they demand is not being a bigot or transphobic. And, the fact you you call so many people that here who I think clearly are not… is just utter nonsense. 
 

Because, the reality of trans issues is very complex, no one really understands it and the futures of many young people are at risk. If you can’t have decent civil conversation with people of differing views that’s on you, and you contributing to a toxic society. 

Don’t be a jerk. It doesn’t do you any good, makes your arguments look weak and easily disregard whatever substance you could offer.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Thought Art

[Danioover9000]

@Thought Art

2 hours ago, Thought Art said:

What’s wrong with being an actual man or woman? I’m starting to push back against this narrative that man and women are bad, and trans is good. This is non-sense. 

Gender and sexual identity is important to many if not most people. 
 

Yes, culture will continue to evolve over time. We will change and grow. However, extreme liberalism has many risks associated with it.

If it’s important for a trans person to express themselves, have their labels the same is probably true for ordinary folks as well. 

It’s important young men learn to be young men, and young women young women. 
 

and, for people who find themselves outside of that duality it’s fine as well. They learn to do their thing too. 
 

But, I don’t think… though I may be wrong that we all need to rewrite our understanding entirely. 
 

this being said with understanding of degrees, difference, sameness, duality, etc 

   I agree with this perspective, because there's an order of operations, hierarchy and sequence of events that sometimes need to be acknowledged at least, and sometimes maintained. I also see this issue with capitalism versus communism and socialism, to me it's important that a country has at least implemented capitalistic economies first, secure good regulated markets and a trade system of imports and exports, before we implement socio economics modals. We can't just skip capitalism completely and the means of production and business and commerce and expect that we end up having a flourishing altruistic socialism based country, you need securities beforehand for not just selfishness from other foreign countries but also selfishness in different parts of the system.

   Similar with the transgender issue, a person must master being feminine and masculine, good mix of qualities from both, grounded, before going full trans, at the very least to think carefully before going the full transformation. Of course, many assumptions being made here, and I'm oversimplifying the complicated processes of the person and other psychological issues, which is why we need that report of the ratio of transgender ideology versus innate gender dysphoria.

   Maybe our future going forward in humanity, is radical transhumanism, maybe we evolve to be hermaphrodites via gene modifications and cybernetics and alien DNA splicing? Who knows.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Danioover9000

[Israfil]

1 hour ago, Thought Art said:

@DrugsBunny Okay, when you cherry pick one sentence you miss a lot of what I said. 

Read my post again. I clearly said those who don’t fit, should find healthy expression of their unique identity. I am fully aware of the diverse expression humans are capable.
 

However, MOST HUMANS feel comfortable with their body’s and their gender which is normal, healthy, and ideal.
 

The issue I have here is militant, aggressive, ignorant and foolish way pro trans people look at politics, society, conflict, differing opinions, science, etc… it’s not healthy. 
 

Men and women, and calling them thus is a fine thing to do. I am a man, and I’m fact and working on being a better man. What is a man? That’s also a complicated issue. What is a man? What is a woman? What is gender? What is sex? These concepts are not obvious. But, I am a man and enjoy it.
 

It’s also ideal we respect people who don’t fit into gender norms either. But, people do not need to bend their knee to ideologues. Not bending my knee to trans idealogy in every single way they demand is not being a bigot or transphobic. And, the fact you you call so many people that here who I think clearly are not… is just utter nonsense. 
 

Because, the reality of trans issues is very complex, no one really understands it and the futures of many young people are at risk. If you can’t have decent civil conversation with people of differing views that’s on you, and you contributing to a toxic society. 

Don’t be a jerk. It doesn’t do you any good, makes your arguments look weak and easily disregard whatever substance you could offer.

I don't see how this is bigoted at all. I have pondered deeply about my sexual and gender expression and also found that developing a healthy sense of masculinity is the best for me and society in general. I don't think that this position stops anyone from expressing different identities or excludes them from society.  

[DrugsBunny]

3 hours ago, Thought Art said:

@DrugsBunny  What is a man? That’s also a complicated issue. What is a man? What is a woman? What is gender? What is sex? 

This is where I'll correct you, these concepts are actually very very simple.

What is sex? An archetype of anatomy that has a strict male/female binary.
What is gender? A spectrum of expressions associated with the sex binary (ie. the way you dress, speak, emote etc..).

What is a man? In the context of gender, a man is simply anybody who sincerely identifies as one. Colloquially there is still usage of the words "man" or "woman" that pertains to sex, not gender, in which case a man would be an adult with male physiology, but this definition is pretty out of vouge and for good reason. There is no utility to be derived from the words "man" or "woman" in a non-gender related context, as they are merely used interchangeably with male and female, which does not serve any real utility, but rather obfuscates it

You can see why I make a distinction between male/female and man/woman right? The former serves its main purpose in describing biological sex whereas the latter gives utility in describing gender expression (regardless of how we use them colloquially). Therefore we can exclusively reserve the terms man/woman for gender expression, which means the question "What is a woman?" can definitively be answered simply as "anyone who identifies as such".

This is absolutely not an ideology, this is an incontestable assessment of linguistic utility, and any insistence otherwise is a clear ideological bias. 

3 hours ago, Thought Art said:

These concepts are not obvious.

The idea that the questions you pose are actually complicated suggests that there is some elaborate male/female archetype one must conform to in order to qualify as being a man or woman. This narrative, while not necessarily bigoted in itself, plays into the hand of prejudiced hegemon, so obviously I'd rather not let such statements go unchallenged. 

3 hours ago, Thought Art said:

Don’t be a jerk. It doesn’t do you any good, makes your arguments look weak and easily disregard whatever substance you could offer.

If that's your impression despite how innocuous my response was I'd imagine you already sought to disregard the substantive merit of my position right off the bat.

[Carl-Richard]

58 minutes ago, DrugsBunny said:

You can see why I make a distinction between male/female and man/woman right? The former serves its main purpose in describing biological sex whereas the latter gives utility in describing gender expression (regardless of how we use them colloquially). Therefore we can exclusively reserve the terms man/woman for gender expression, which means the question "What is a woman?" can definitively be answered simply as "anyone who identifies as such".

I think the words man/woman don't fit neatly into either category, and that you can't change how people intuitively understand those words, and that you can also request somebody to call you something that you want to be called without anyone having to treat you badly for it (but also, don't expect the world to revolve around you).

Edited April 25, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Thought Art]

@DrugsBunny Thank for sharing. 

56 minutes ago, DrugsBunny said:

This is absolutely not an ideology, this is an incontestable assessment of linguistic utility, and any insistence otherwise is a clear ideological bias. .

 

You should be careful with this type of thinking though. What you are saying IS ideological. 
 

I do not think a male, who is transgender is a woman. I will never see that person as a woman, because to me a woman is a biological female. To me, this is my bias and my ideology based on how I see reality. For me, a man and a woman is both gender and sex based. 
 

I know that there are men, who are trans women. That there are women who are trans men. I am alright with that. But, to me and many people…men who transition… they aren’t women. They are still people, deserve respect etc. But…. You know and I’ve really contemplated this… I have no fear of trans people or hate against them. I simply have my own world view. 
 

This is a complicated subject, and I realize I might offend some people here. 
 

I am willing to engage is conversation about this further. 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Thought Art

[DrugsBunny]

5 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You can make a distinction between sex and gender without reserving the words "man/woman" to either. I can think of many reasons why I would feel inclined to call someone a man or a woman that is not merely due to social behavior, but things like physical appearance, explosive strength or tone of voice. In that case, calling somebody a man or a woman is not as much about identity, but rather immediate appearances, which I think is true for most things. I would argue that most labels we use, even in social situations, have to do with immediate appearances. It takes more work to ask what somebody identifies as than to see what they look or act like. But still, if you want to be called a man or a woman, then that can be respected, but that doesn't mean that you've changed what the word man/woman means intuitively for most people.

My facepalm has reached metaphysical proportions. Thank you for providing such an easily refuted counter-example.

Of course you can refer to people as men or women by appearance, I'm only saying that doing so would be your interpretation of their gender expression, not their sex. Nothing I said has been invalidated.

We have so many examples of transphobes like Ben Shapiro calling trans people (who still have their original genitalia) by their preferred gender pronouns ACCIDENTALLY, and then haphazardly "correcting" themselves to intentionally misgender them by calling them the pronouns associated with the biological sex. This is because you would reflexively assume someone's man/woman status based on their gender expression, not their sex.

[Danioover9000]

@Jannes So, how are you doing today?

[Carl-Richard]

1 minute ago, DrugsBunny said:

Of course you can refer to people as men or women by appearance, I'm only saying that doing so would be your interpretation of their gender expression, not their sex. Nothing I said has been invalidated.

What about genitalia? Is that gender expression?

 

2 minutes ago, DrugsBunny said:

We have so many examples of transphobes like Ben Shapiro calling trans people (who still have their original genitalia) by their preferred gender pronouns ACCIDENTALLY, and then haphazardly "correcting" themselves to intentionally misgender them by calling them the pronouns associated with the biological sex.

That is true. I edited my unnecessarily complicated response right before you responded to it:

 

24 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I think the words man/woman don't fit neatly into either category, and that you can't change how people intuitively understand those words, and that you can also request somebody to call you something that you want to be called without anyone having to treat you badly for it (but also, don't expect the world to revolve around you).

 

[Thought Art]

1 hour ago, DrugsBunny said:

The idea that the questions you pose are actually complicated suggests that there is some elaborate male/female archetype one must conform to in order to qualify as being a man or woman. This narrative, while not necessarily bigoted in itself, plays into the hand of prejudiced hegemon, so obviously I'd rather not let such statements go unchallenged. 

 

I think, gender expression can be very diverse. Males can be very feminine or very feminine. As can the same be true for females. 
 

Gay men exist who dress in drag, wear women’s clothing etc… I have good friends who enjoy this. They are men though. But they don’t identify as women. 
 

The trans issue is unique in that… men who “transition” (which I think is actually a fantasy) want to compete in women’s sports, etc and the problems around kids mental health etc… it’s complicated. 
 

I also know masculine women.

These people aren’t identifying 

Here is a panel of men, who are all men in different ways… 

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Thought Art

[Danioover9000]

@Carl-Richard @Thought Art  

24 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I think the words man/woman don't fit neatly into either category, and that you can't change how people intuitively understand those words, and that you can also request somebody to call you something that you want to be called without anyone having to treat you badly for it (but also, don't expect the world to revolve around you).

   I do agree with this a bit, you are called what you are in an immediate appearances, direct experience as is comes first, concepts and ideas second. While it's great to be identified as your biological sex, and gender as one in alignment, some people will have different alignment between their biology and psychology, along with differences in stages of development, cognitive and moral development, personality types, states of consciousness, life experiences and other lines of development, in personal to societal domains, and other ideologies indoctrinated and groomed into your mind.

   Like with most things, each factor should be considered, Like it would be nice if I'm identified as a moderator and thought policeman, but if I force myself to make this identity rigid as who I am as a social construct, then my performances may get impacted, like I won't be able to play well in chess because instead of letting myself be a chess player, I'm stuck being a thought policeman/moderator of my thoughts.

[Danioover9000]

@Thought Art

7 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

I think, gender expression can be very diverse. Males can be very feminine or very feminine. As can the same be true for females. 
 

Gay men exist who dress in drag, wear women’s clothing etc… I have good friends who enjoy this. They are men though. But they don’t identify as women. 
 

The trans issue is unique in that… men who “transition” (which I think is actually a fantasy) want to compete in women’s sports, etc and the problems around kids mental health etc… it’s complicated. 
 

I also know masculine women.

These people aren’t identifying 

Here is a panel of men, who are all men in different ways… 

 

   Yes, gender expression can be very diverse, I think we have 50s gender pronouns and more. Because of how fluid and malleable identity and psychology can be it is so, because of this we have roleplaying, D&D, acting, film making, up to espionage and so on.

   Yes, he's a biological male sexed, and doesn't identify as a female, but rather as a cross dresser.

   Yes, gender dysphoria is a growing issue among children, and the science is still unclear if this is from confusion due to the child being confused what gender should they identify as or are peer pressured into identifying as transgendered, versus actually being born with gender dysphoria.  

[Thought Art]

@Danioover9000 I actually struggled with this whole non-binary and gender identity thing. I think it’s only recently I’ve been settling into my masculine energy. This was because spiritually I was trying to identify as the whole. I still do this, but I am growing as a male man individual. I at some level done identify with ANYTHING. Which is why I am risking my head head diving into this trans topic. 
 

I as a general rule don’t think creating a strong identity or ideology is healthy.
 

But, I do think that my biology plays a huge role in my thinking and behaviour. I think generally biological boys are drawn to do boy like behaviour. Even men who transition to women still have male drives. 
 

The founding thinker that gender is separate from sex who made it popular is western academia. What was his name?

My views on this are pretty nuanced and also still being developed as we speak.  
 

I think that, a human can think however they want. 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Thought Art

[Danioover9000]

@Thought Art

4 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@Danioover9000 I actually struggled with this whole non-binary and gender identity thing. I think it’s only recently I’ve been settling into my masculine energy. This was because spiritually I was trying to identify as the whole. I still do this, but I am growing as a male man individual. 
 

I as a general rule don’t think creating a strong identity or ideology is healthy.
 

But, I do think that my biology plays a huge role in my thinking and behaviour. 

My views on this are pretty nuanced and also still being developed as we speak.  

   Yeah, it's gets complicated when we factor in age and when we can deconstruct the non-binary/binary and gender identity roles. I generally assume, best practice to identify with biological sex and gender role as the same first, and then later the person can deconstruct.

   Yeah, it's tricky. I do agree strong identity and ideology, and too much close mindedness might be bad, but some people have to assume and have axioms in the first few steps. Children can't be identifying with any object they see or fantasize being after schools, otherwise who can a person being a chair, or being an animal, or being a unicorn work their 9 to 5 job, and provide and protect themselves first?

[Israfil]

1 hour ago, DrugsBunny said:

You can see why I make a distinction between male/female and man/woman right? The former serves its main purpose in describing biological sex whereas the latter gives utility in describing gender expression (regardless of how we use them colloquially). Therefore we can exclusively reserve the terms man/woman for gender expression, which means the question "What is a woman?" can definitively be answered simply as "anyone who identifies as such".

This is absolutely not an ideology, this is an incontestable assessment of linguistic utility, and any insistence otherwise is a clear ideological bias.

The male/female distinction is a gross oversimplification of the biological reality. It doesn't serve the purpose of defining biological sex in its entirety. And the argument of identification with gender being the same as being such gender is a circular argument in disguise. If a woman is defined as anyone who identifies as such, what is that they're identifying with? If gender is a declaration of identity, what is it that you're identifying with? By definition, an identity is a dichotomy between two objects that share similar characteristics. This definition of "anyone who identifies as such" simply states that there is an abstract woman stereotype that people are identifying with, and therefore "woman" must describe a summary of characteristics that people perceive in themselves and equates those with the summary "woman".

You can talk about expanding the perception of a woman to include people who transition, i.e. identify with the set of "womanly" characteristics and seek physical and behavior changes to externally reflect those characteristics, but you cannot say that the mere identification turns that person into a woman. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any trans people. They would simply identify as a woman and that feeling would be enough. The whole point of transition is the presentation to self and to others of the archetypical gender characteristics that are perceived as man and woman by the individual in question and society in general.

[Danioover9000]

@Thought Art  Also, didn't you say you were asexual, or similar to @bejapuskas?

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Danioover9000 said:

@Jannes So, how are you doing today?

My head hurts from all the drama of this thread. I hope you are doing fine?

Luckily I already got a decent answer to my question.

38 minutes ago, Israfil said:

You can talk about expanding the perception of a woman to include people who transition, i.e. identify with the set of "womanly" characteristics and seek physical and behavior changes to externally reflect those characteristics, but you cannot say that the mere identification turns that person into a woman. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any trans people. They would simply identify as a woman and that feeling would be enough. The whole point of transition is the presentation to self and to others of the archetypical gender characteristics that are perceived as man and woman by the individual in question and society in general.

It shows that there are some people who connect womanly with traditional female physical attributes but that doesn't mean it's the case for everybody in society because trans people make up a very small amount in society. 

So there could very well be people who just by identifying with a different gender then their biological one and are happy with that. The fact that some people can't do that doesn't mean there arent people who can do that.