Like for one minute, can we be honest with ourselves. Why are we normalizing this? These people, deserve respect, but honestly just as much, they need help. Not a single doctor in the video, just a bunch of preaching. It's so sad to see people so misguided in their own chemistry and reality.
Also when are we going to stop pretending NPR isn't some liberal BS most of the time.
Normalizing what? There are doctors involved. What do you think the recommended course of action is for someone with gender dysphoria or someone born intersex?
What do you think the recommended course of action is for someone with gender dysphoria or someone born intersex?
For people who get intervention, the rates of depression and suicide remain alarmingly high. For children and adolescents who are told to wait until they are adults before receiving physical intervention, what are the rates of depression and suicide? I have read and heard that many such people become well adjusted as adults. For those that don't become well adjusted, there's still the option of physical intervention.
What you have heard and read is wrong. No, people forced to live as a gender contrary to their own do not grow up to be well adjusted adults. Gender dysphoria is a real disorder as any perusal of legitimate medical research will tell you. The sources I imagine you reach for are non-scientific and not appropriate for HN.
Reading the reactions around the articles and media referenced in them just strike me as a combination of science and medicine along with ideological activism. My experience is that so long as people are in a community which accepts them, the vast majority of people will figure things out without the need for surgery and hormone injections.
I’ve seen a lot of grossly oversimplified biology and science, this is remarkable for how competent it is. Yes, some BS in there, but nobody’s perfect.
For example, if you assume gender is binary and XX=Female/XY=Male, which gender is someone with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY)?
When I watch this video, I think about how my mind needs to expand to better understand the complex issues that these authentic people are describing. I think about what I need to learn to live harmoniously with the staggering diversity of humans on this planet. The "help" they need is compassion and open-mindedness from their fellow humans.
The gender/sexual binary is the norm, but it isn't the law, and it isn't explicitly a binary, but the top of a distribution curve. People are complicated. Gender, sexuality, preference, what expressions are acceptable in society and what are transgressive, are all complex and... dare one say... fluid.
Having a sexual preference or gender identity that falls outside the heteronormative gender binary isn't a sign of genetic defect, mental illness or moral failing, it's simply not the norm, but still natural.
We need to come to the point where being gay, bisexual, transgender, whatever is seen as no different than having an unusual eye or hair color, or being left handed.
This isn't about being gay, bisexual, or transgender.
I don't even see why they lump intersex with all the others. Intersex people are born with variations in the chromosomes/genitals/gonads and, as far as I know, that sounds like the exact definition of a defect - not sure if genetic or not. It's not a mental illness or a moral failing, but it's definitely outside the spectrum of what is considered normal physical (or chromosomal) characteristics at birth.
As far as your last comment, we're basically already there, I wish people would stop talking about it already. I think nothing when I see homosexuals, don't even look twice at trans. Zero fucks given.
On the other hand, I am a bit annoyed that nearly every TV show feels the need to push an agenda down my throat in one way or another. Does every sitcom really need a gay couple now? Is that even representative of the population as a whole?
On the other hand, I am a bit annoyed that nearly every TV show feels the need to push an agenda down my throat in one way or another. Does every sitcom really need a gay couple now? Is that even representative of the population as a whole?
I may have a skewed view because of where I've lived (mostly the SF Bay Area and Seattle area), but yeah, it seems to be the norm -- both at work and in my small circle of friends, I see homosexual couples.
Even in my small (~30,000 people) hometown in Ohio, homosexual couples are prevalent and don't need to hide - my nephew recently came out as gay and I was surprised when he said how accepted it is in the community, it's been nearly 30 years ago since I last lived there, and at the time, being gay was a huge stigma that had to be kept hidden.
So in my view, what you're seeing in the media mirrors what's happening in society - homosexuality is becoming mainstream. It's not an "agenda" they are pushing, but normal life.
Alternative gender identities are slowly gaining acceptance, but even in the Bay Area it can be hard for a trans person to be accepted.
I'm in Austin, so it's definitely similar to SF in those regards, but I think overall we're talking more like ~5% of the population identifies as LGBT*, while at times it seems like any show with 4 main characters has written 1-2 of those characters to be homosexual (and usually tries to write that into the storyline somehow, dealing with identity/etc.).
It may "seem" like every 1-2 of every for main characters is gay, but that's far from the truth. At any rate, it is clear that your homophobia is responsible for how uncomfortable you are seeing gay characters.
I haven't watched many recent sitcoms, I think the last one I wanted regularly was How I Met Your Mother which had zero gay lead characters (even though the biggest womanizer on the show was played by and actor who is gay in real life).
There are some gay focused shows (Grace & Frankie, Will and Grace), but looking at the top 5 current sitcoms [1]
1. Big Bang Theory - none of the main characters are gay
2. Modern Family - out of 11 main characters, 2 are gay
3. Brooklyn Nine Nine - out of 10 main characters, 1 is gay
4. The Simpsons - I don't know how to count main characters, but I don't think any are gay
5. Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Out of 5 main characters, one is (or might be?) gay.
(I used Wikipedia for most of these, so I may not have gotten the counts completely accurate)
This doesn't seem to be a gross over representation of homosexuality - I wonder if you're suffering from observation bias, or if maybe you're just watching sitcoms that have more gay characters for whatever reason.
LGBT people are everywhere, being easily several percent of the population. I'm one of them. They should be represented in the media like everyone else. Would you like to explain the reasoning why you are against this? What are your thoughts on the level of racial minority representation in the media? Is that too high for your tastes as well?
I'm not against LGBT representation at all. I've just had the thought that 1/4 (lead) characters on shows I watch seem to be LGBT. And that's probably an exaggeration, like someone else said. I do think it's important that if a screenwriter is going to write a gay character into the story, he do it with purpose and feeling rather than just to check a box. Make the viewer empathize and feel for the character.
Currently watching Dear White People. It's great. Most racial minorities seem well-represented these days. Off the top of my head, Muslim-Americans and Middle-Easterners could use some more representation. Indians too.
Perhaps it's cognitive bias rather than hate. Being so quick to label and bucket people negatively only pushes them away rather than convince them. This person seems reasonable and amenable to changing their mind.
I've been around the block enough times to know homophobia when I see it, thanks. I've been dealing with it for a long time, and I'm more than happy to put homophobes in a bucket.
The poster's homophobia was blatantly obvious, down to the verbatim jabs I always hear. Being upset that there are too many gay characters on tv and they are "shoving an agenda our throats" is homophobic by definition. It is 100% undisguised homophobia, without even the decorum of a dog whistle. If you can't see that, you are either unbelievably naive or are actually a homophobe who is trolling by being willfully obtuse. My money is on the latter.
It needs to be called out, not coddled. Asserting equal rights is not something that is ever done with politeness.
At any rate, I am quite sick of folks like you claiming that I should be careful not to offend people who say things like "pushing it down our throats" in reference to the existence of gay characters. I will never apologize for asserting my equality and speaking out against bigotry. I don't care if I make a bigot feel bad.
Straight white males have society's permission to become apoplectically angry about black football players kneeling. If they can do that, I should be able to call out bigots without enablers like you trying to defend them.
Your post was just idiotic. Think next time before you defend a homophobe. You are part of the problem. Be better. Next time you see bigotry, confront the bigot, not the folks calling it out.
>As far as your last comment, we're basically already there, I wish people would stop talking about it already. I think nothing when I see homosexuals, don't even look twice at trans. Zero fucks given.
Good for you, but "we" aren't basically already there at all.
>On the other hand, I am a bit annoyed that nearly every TV show feels the need to push an agenda down my throat in one way or another.
So... you feel the presence of gay characters in media represents an "agenda" being "pushed down your throat." You likely have no problem with straight characters, nor perhaps would even notice if a series had only straight characters, but feel that gay characters need to be justified.
Fucks given after all, I guess?
>Does every sitcom really need a gay couple now? Is that even representative of the population as a whole?
Not every sitcom has a gay couple, that's hyperbole. However, a dearth of gay characters in media does not represent the population as a whole (whatever that might mean in context) and the perception created by this historical lack of gay representation in media makes it seem as if gay people are less common in reality than they are.
So, yes, the few gay characters you see in media now probably do represent reality more accurately than would their absence, and may even still under represent the norm in some contexts.
Here[0] is a good video by one of the Council of Geeks members on why mainstream LGBT representation in media matters.
You make several valid points. I will check out the video you referenced.
On the other hand - I have wondered if maybe Hollywood is over-represented by LGBT persons (not that it's a bad thing) and thus gay screenwriters/investors/producers are of course going to include their own stories in the things they create. I could be totally wrong here, just an idea I have had.
What is few to some is many to others, it seems. Maybe I just watch a lot of progressive stuff. There are a ton of teenage lesbian characters in a lot of stuff on Netflix; enough to make me think being lesbian is in vogue.
>I have wondered if maybe Hollywood is over-represented by LGBT persons (not that it's a bad thing) and thus gay screenwriters/investors/producers are of course going to include their own stories in the things they create.
I don't know about being "over-represented," but I don't think it's unreasonable that there is a newer generation of LGBT writers and showrunners interested in writing the sort of stories that represent them, or that they never got to see when they were younger and struggling with their identity. That's not an agenda so much as writing what you know, though.
And let's not beat around the bush - if all a show wanted was token representation, "teenage lesbian" is the most palatable form it can take in a heteronormative, male-dominant culture.
That statement is not supported by plenty of scientific research. One of the problems is that organizations like WPATH suppress any research that contradicts the trans narrative, and publish poor studies that support it.
Um, no. Reality dictates that everything is based on relativity and probability, but the logic that everything technically falls into a grey area doesn't mean that abstractions like male and female, man and woman (silos that the vast vast majority of people fall into) aren't useful, practical, or real.
If one believes that binary is bullshit, then be consistent and accept metaphysical nihilism. Accept that binary in computers is "bullshit" because a 1 can be represented by an infinite number of voltages, and sometimes 0 is represented by a really low voltage. Ignorant binary-normative CPUs!
I don't care how people identify, how they have sex, how they love, etc. People should be able to express their true selves, but I'm getting tired of the constant disdain against normalcy. I've never quite fit in anywhere I go so I think I can understand what it's like to want society to conform to one's vision. Part of being a part of society is some level of conformity and accepting that other people aren't like you.
If binary-non-conforming people want acceptance, then they ought to quit acting like my sex and my gender are bullshit. Gay people didn't achieve their current status in society, as better as it could be, by telling gay people that there's no such thing as "straight" sex.
> Gender is about your identity, your expression, and it's often based on your idea of sex.
If gender isn't related to the perception or expression of biological sex, then what is it? If sex is optional for gender, then how is gender different from fashion?
I could go on point by point, but those two things really address most of the video.
EDIT: For clarity, I'm not saying that I don't think that gender isn't a form of fashion. I'm saying that, if the variable of sex is removed, then it's a totally useless word that can be substituted with the word fashion. (in which case it's bizarre that people are trying to make other people like their sense of fashion)
First half is about intersex people who do not fit into those boxes. They are operated on infancy to fit into boxes. It is not like they would have any choice in the matter. They did not chose how they are born and they did not choose to be operated on.
Intersex means that you have mix of male and female organs/hormons. Or you look like women, but don't have fitting chromosomes. Operation is done on theory that it will be easier for you this way.
> If gender isn't related to the perception or expression of biological sex, then what is it? If sex is optional for gender, then how is gender different from fashion?
Gender afaik is not all that different for fashion. Writing in general and especially poetry was considered male thing. It was weird for girl to do it. Now it is considered girl thing (at least where I live).
Consciously and subconsciously, people do and don't do things based on what makes them look weird vs normal or popular or fitting in. Or they just follow cues (every boy in class got star wars sticker and every girl barbie one so they just follow that). My understanding of gender is that it is what you do cause of these things.
I have no dispute about the facts about intersex people. Their existence just doesn't support the idea that "binary is bullshit", and your use of "male" and "female" ironically demonstrates the usefulness of those concepts.
> Gender afaik is not all that different for fashion. Writing in general and especially poetry was considered male thing. It was weird for girl to do it. Now it is considered girl thing (at least where I live).
Yeah, it's not that different from fashion because it is a form of fashion. My point is that if gender is sex-optional, then it's a totally useless term that's superseded by the word fashion.
> Consciously and subconsciously, people do and don't do things based on what makes them look weird vs normal or popular or fitting in. Or they just follow cues
That's true. And it's also true that people have certain behaviors because of biological conditions acting upon them. For instance, do you think that most females are statistically attracted to males just because it's normal, or that females can be conditioned to be homosexual if society worked differently? If not, then why not also apply the steps you use to reach that conclusion to gender expression?
First, it makes perfect sense to have more general and more specific words. Second, fashion implies clothing and quick change. Gender identity is something very important to people, they don't throw it just like that. They get more offended over others having wrong gender expression. Small kids treat gender as something super important and get more relaxed as they grow from kindergarten.
> For instance, do you think that most females are statistically attracted to males just because it's normal, or that females can be conditioned to be homosexual if society worked differently?
Homosexual acts are more common in single sex groups like prisons. So yeah, humans have certain flexibility. Bisexual people would be more likely to choose opposite sex partner in homosexuality tolerant society then in the one where it is frowned upon and illegal.
> If not, then why not also apply the steps you use to reach that conclusion to gender expression?
Cause there is this neat trick where some or unknown amount of hormonal impact is extrapolated to all of gender differences as you are trying to do here. Or something completely unrelated being extrapolated at gender as you also do here. There was no biological change that would influence writing affinity, just social one. When women were all expected to be stay at home, some of their behavior was influenced by the lonely-whole-day stay at home person experience - that would lead to different gender expression too compared to males who went to work with other people.
In a lot of ways it isn't. Gender is often performative in nature. The idea that gender is binary is fairly reductive, and as most people know isn't a very descriptive way to view the world. You're more likely to be a mix of masculine and feminine traits than a binary one-or-the-other.
Viewing the world via binary genders puts people into categories that can be negative. This is why gender bias exists, because we view men with certain traits and women with certain traits. If society was less binary in its approach to gender we might have to make less assumptions about people.
This is similar to the old way of approaching race science. X people are good at Y, and A people are good at B. We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial.
Gender is often performative in nature...We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial.
Life is often performative in nature. We need to think about this when it comes to culture and society. If we want ourselves and our community to become wealthy, then we need to model our behavior to people who are well off. Likewise, we need to avoid acting like people who are failing.
In this, human beings inevitably reinterpret and change things. In part, it's a matter of figuring out the essentials. (The opposite of cargo cult behavior.)
> The idea that gender is binary is fairly reductive
Yes, that actually is the idea about having a binary. It's reductive. At the end of the day, a sperm and an egg have to meet for a population to propagate, and seeing as how the vast majority in a population that sexually reproduces have either set of organs that make sperm or eggs, it becomes naturally efficient to rule out who is mating material and who isn't.
For instance, a mostly heterosexual person is going to almost always be interested in copulating with the opposite sex, and it's convenient that most people of the opposite sex display gender that is mostly in line with the opposite sex. It's just that most of us really don't find it mostly useful to be using the word "most" when we're talking about things most of the time to acknowledge that mostly nothing is binary, so we decide to fit everything in to categories so we can assess them. If someone falls within a certain circle of a Venn diagram, then pragmatically they are considered within that category even if they don't perfectly match it.
> This is similar to the old way of approaching race science. X people are good at Y, and A people are good at B. We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial.
We pushed back on "race science" because it's not scientific.
> then pragmatically they are considered within that category even if they don't perfectly match it.
The problem is that it is not normally pragmatic. It's not pragmatic for a woman in the workforce to be associated with feminine characteristics whether she displays them or not. It's not pragmatic for a more feminine boy to be told by his parents that he needs to act more masculine. A lot of these things are purely social constructs.
No one is arguing that sex isn't a thing, or that you don't need a male and female to create life. No one is even saying that your biological sex has zero bearing on your gender identity. The point I am making is that categorization based on a binary spectrum of gender is not pragmatic and is not scientific.
If sex is optional for gender, then how is gender different from fashion?
It is a good point IMO, and from the perspective of the theory of embodied cognition, to which I highly subscribe, I've always had a hard time thinking that male and female minds (intersex set aside) can just interchangeable. There are physical and physiological differences, such as hormones, that must make a difference in cognition and somehow must extend to behaviour/tastes.
It's an inference given a theory, which questions me. Not trying to be affirmative here.
I think you're taking that statement quite out of context and extrapolating it into an argument against math and logic. By saying 'binary is bullshit', they are making the argument that gender is a bimodal distribution, and that forcing it into a pure binary model is oppressive (not to mention counter to much evidence). Certainly in the gender distribution, the two peaks may represent so many people that it is useful to name them, just as it is useful to name many strong probabilistic phenomenae. Is the weather report that it will rain certain? No, but I'll prepare for rain. I think we'll agree on that.
But many people fall outside of the bimodal peaks and are actively discriminated against by people who do not believe there is a distribution in the first place, or who believe that if you are not sufficiently close to one of the peaks that you are an unfit human being.
This is why I think you're taking it out of context. You are clearly not the target audience of that statement. You understand that the two mainstream gender labels are, as you say, 'useful' and 'practical'. You understand that '1' can represent many voltages. Labels are useful, as long as you understand the level of certainty they represent. The target audience of that statement believes they are the only thing, period (taking a simplistic view), or who make a value judgement based on how close one is to one of the bimodal peaks (taking a normative view).
Certainly I don't represent everything you'll read that's said or written by advocates for people with different genders, but there is illogic on both 'sides' of the arguments on gender and sexuality. Here's how I look at it. Regardless of the illogic, which side is more harmful? The side that is making value judgements based on faulty evidence and using those to propose and enforce sometimes tremendously painful rules on others, or the side that is sometimes making illogical arguments in an attempt to be accepted by society?
I cant help but feel like if gender norms weren't so rigid and people were allowed to express themselves however they feel comfortable without being stigmatized and judged then you wouldn't have people say (imo) crazy things like "my biology is the biology of a woman regardless of whether or not doctors agree." That honestly just feels like an extreme (and ignorant, again, imo) response to hatred and discrimination that people have experience in the past.
"A trans woman's biology is a female biology" is just a statement I cannot agree with at all. One of my best friends growing up was a guy I'll call Adam. In high school Adam was an incredible athlete (he was a runner and swimmer) and held a lot of county records and was the third fastest at the 400m hurdles in the state. Adam came out as trans around his 21st birthday and now lives a woman I'll call Alice. Alice is a trans woman. The idea that her biology is that of a person born with two X chromosomes and a vagina is a little ridiculous to me. I see Alice as a woman today because that's what she wants and it doesn't make a difference to our friendship however I know Alice has a penis and spent 90% of her life living as a boy/man. FWIW, she and I have talked a lot about this and shares my views. In fact my views on the matter are largely influenced by her perspective on it.
I often wonder if the trans-rights movement is stuck in this kind of rhetorical cul-de-sac because the gay rights movement leaned so hard on "born this way" to make its case. That made sense because it moved the discussion away from sexual morality toward fairness. No doubt necessary to win the concessions and public opinion change of the 00s-10s.
In reality it shouldn't matter how innate sexual preference or gender identity are. People should be free to identify and fuck as they please. Unfortunately some on the ultra-woke side of the trans rights movement have continued to paint themselves into the corner of "born this way" but then have to backfill their biological epistemology to fit their rhetoric.
I haven't personally heard a trans story that conflicts with "born this way", to understand what I mean you'd use the perspective that it refers to both the body and the mind that inhabits it.
If gender is innate, and not a social construct, then what does that say about gender roles and what are the implications for modern feminism? If gender is a purely social construct, gender identity is a lifestyle choice.
Both formulations are wrong, but people tend to go all in arguing one or the other. The problem is now we have the same crew that was 100% social construct arguing for 100% biological determinism and the inconsistency of worldview makes them sound ridiculous.
I cant help but feel like if gender norms weren't so rigid and people were allowed to express themselves however they feel comfortable without being stigmatized and judged then you wouldn't have people say (imo) crazy things like "my biology is the biology of a woman regardless of whether or not doctors agree."
Funny thing, but back in the 80's, there was a kerfuffle in the LGBT community on campus where I was going to school. (I lived in a house with some prominent people in the group, including the campus president. We also deliberately chose a gay man as our house adviser.) Many militant LGBT people were basically bashing the bisexuals, calling them "fence sitters." Even going to the level of yelling at them and coming up with an ideology of denying the existence of bisexuals.
There were also a number of couples who got effectively harassed because the man was declared by the crowd to be a "self denying" gay man and the woman was similarly declared to be a "baby dyke." There was this ideology that this form of attraction wasn't "real." Isn't society butting its nose into people's love lives the problem in the first place? I say we just leave people alone and let them work it out. Everyone should be "live and let live" as much as possible. From what I've seen, this is by far the best policy.
Looking back on it all, those events were just another instance of angry teens and 20-somethings running around acting as if they knew everything there is to know about a big, complex subject. It's a big, complex subject we're all too close to and therefore biased about.
(The problem in 2019, is that the hot blazing centers of our culture create incentives for the exact opposite of the "live and let live" mentality.)
Isn't society butting its nose into people's love lives the problem in the first place?
The reason "society" -- aka other people -- does that is because our sexual choices often have impacts on other people. If you sleep around casually, wind up pregnant out of wedlock and/or with a terrible, incurable STD, this will impact other people quite substantially. If you continue to sleep around casually afterwards and don't tell your lovers of your diagnosis, you are spreading disease in an outright malicious and incredibly selfish fashion.
Etc.
Most people who want society to butt out of their sex lives also want society to rescue them when something terrible happens. If people were all "It's all good. I'll just sleep in a ditch and wait to die of AIDS. I don't need nothing, thanks! I did this to myself." you might see less pushback from society concerning what people choose to do behind closed doors.
Or, you know, if someone just wants to masturbate and not involve anyone in how they get their sexual needs met, cool. But that isn't how most people operate.
Unfortunately, most people have a fairly poor track record of thinking in earnest about how their sexual preferences, predilections and choices impact other people. In many cases, they do a poor job of thinking about how this will impact the people they are actually having sex with. They often don't think at all about others beyond that who may be impacted as well.
I am not justifying homophobia, etc. But a policy of "live and let live" is not as simple as most people perhaps wish it were.
>Isn't society butting its nose into people's love lives the problem in the first place? I say we just leave people alone and let them work it out. Everyone should be "live and let live" as much as possible. From what I've seen, this is by far the best policy.
I agree so much with this and it's always how i've tried to be. I've never really understood why people choose to make this their business. They don't have to. They really don't. It's just never made sense to me why what two other people choose to do together would be anything to do with me or why people would expend so much energy worrying about it.
There's just never seemed like a good reason to waste time and energy, judging, worrying, or even really thinking about what kind of people other people are attracted to.
> my biology is the biology of a woman regardless of whether or not doctors agree
> The idea that her biology is that of a person born with two X chromosomes and a vagina is a little ridiculous to me
Well, there's a logical resolution here. The biology of women contains cis female biology as well as trans female biology. No contradiction between these two points.
The point of making distinctions is because those distinctions are useful to us. Which distinctions we make are up to our discretion. Not only does our understanding inform the distinctions we make, the distinctions we make inform our understanding.
Here's an example. Our culture is obsessed with elaborate social structures based on genitals, isn't that weird? If those cultural practices are rooted in biology, and we want cultural recognition of trans women, then we are saying that trans women have the biology of women. No logical problem here.
Medically, it is arguable that trans women have female biology. That's not saying trans women have the same biology as cis women. Indeed, some trans women need to see a gynecologist, even. Both cis and trans women can take drugs to correct hormonal imbalances. I know a cis women who needs to take spironolactone for high testosterone just like many trans women need to; a family friend was on HRT for menopausal symptoms, estradiol, which many trans women take too. I would not be _at all_ surprised if there were a trans woman and a cis woman on the same exact hormone therapy. So not only can we make the category of "female biology" wider in a medical setting without making a logical mistake (subcategories: trans female biology, cis female biology), there really is overlap between the medical needs of trans women and cis women.
This is not frivolous. Trans women get a serious amount of discrimination and contempt from many medical providers because of this cultural and medical intransigence against them. This change of distinctions has an important consequence to the quality of life of many women, and, in the long term, all of us.
"Transwomen" are just males, i.e. men. They have male biology. This is not frivolous, and not up for debate: it's extremely important that we do not lose the ability to talk about human sexuality in a coherent way.
> Indeed, some trans women need to see a gynecologist, even.
This is also not true. No transwomen ever needs to see a gynecologist except as a form of validation.
A response is absolutely fine! Of course it is. But it needs to be done in a way in which we stand to learn something.
> "Transwomen" are just males, i.e. men. They have male biology. This is not frivolous, and not up for debate...
This is unsubstantive because it is a claim without accompanying support. If the intention was to counter the original point, it should be done with actual information. “Not up for debate” is a giveaway that the commenter doesn't want to participate in a discussion, and this is a discussion site.
> This is also not true. No transwomen ever needs to see a gynecologist except as a form of validation.
There is also no basis provided for this statement, therefore it is unsubstantive.
Thoughtful discourse contains information grounded in our shared reality. What's going on here, and not just in this subthread, is a flamewar. This is not where we learn—this is where learning goes to die in a swamp of cortisol and teeth gnashing.
It depends. If we're talking about someone's "sex" then I'd say their gentials. If we're talking about their gender then I think it could quite easily mean to be how they personally identify.
If I'm completely honest I am quite happy for people to identify however they like. I have no preference or agenda whatsoever. It's not something I give a huge amount of thought to really.
There was an npr story a while back about a person who was touted as being the first woman gondolier in Italy. It turns out that this person thought of themselves as a man, and so never liked the attention he was getting as the first "woman" gondolier. The story convinced me that there are people out there with the body of one sex, but the brain of the other. I really think this person has the brain wiring/chemistry of a man but the body of a woman.
I heard that story as well. It was fascinating. Despite knowing many transgender people that story did more for my understanding of a trans person's experience than almost anything else. As you said. It really seems like a case of a brain in the "wrong" body.
> "A trans woman's biology is a female biology" is just a statement I cannot agree with at all.
It creates real problems and exacerbates existing ones. In finance, you need to predict a person's likely spending, longevity, income, etc. to plan investments, insurance, etc.
The best data is from longitudinal (tracking individuals over time) post-retirement surveys. These take decades to run, and you need a large body of people committed to consistently doing lengthy surveys each year. Hopefully we'll get additional research to show where we can safely match trans persons into the larger surveys.
The issue is, if you dogmatically make claims about someone's biology, you could be right by chance, but everyone providing these services is ethically (fiduciarily) bound to have a justifiable reason for the advice they give to customers.
Some predictions don't seem like they'd be wrong; a trans person is likely to behave the way you'd expect for, e.g., spending on clothing and similar consumer goods. (Though that's pure conjecture.)
But there are critical numbers like lifespan that have big effects on your investment strategy, and men and women differ by 7 years. (Err that a person lives longer and they lose out on growth. Err the other way, and they're overly exposed to risk.)
I suspect many firms will just say, "you have very specific health needs and need to consult a doctor." But that's the industry standard, "our advice is to figure it out yourself," cop out, technically ethical but useless.
> But there are critical numbers like lifespan that have big effects on your investment strategy, and men and women differ by 7 years.
Unless this is for investments made by your parents at birth, the difference is smaller; life expectancy at birth differs a lot by gender, but by early adulthood it's narrowed a lot because very early death is more common in males. I think it's about 3 years for current 20 year olds.
> "A trans woman's biology is a female biology" is just a statement I cannot agree with at all.
There's a number of ways that transgender individuals tend to have an number of biological features more typical of cisgender members of the gender of their identity than of cisgender members of their assigned-at-birth gender; there's other ways that they don't.
It's perfectly valid—and deeply accurate—to say a transwoman’s biology is a female biology, which implicitly not only rejects the idea that it is the singular female biology but also rejects the idea of such a biology. It also doesn't reject that it has aspects in common with some male biologies that might be unlike some other female biologies.
I am somewhat open to what you're saying here. I think perhaps what could be needed is a decoupling of the idea of a woman and the reality of the female sex. My friend Alice is a woman. She also has a penis, testes, and prostate. I don't think that the presence of those organs makes her less of a woman however I couldn't argue that biological she is female. She doesn't even make that argument. She had a testicular cancer scare two years ago that gave us the opportunity to have this very discussion. I apologize if my point of view on this is I'll informed or offensive. It's hard to talk about.
Don't shoot the messenger down voting my post, I put it up for context. I find it odd that 'Teen Vogue' magazine should be showcasing these types of personal views as fact, as the comments on the Youtube video also discuss....
They shouldn't be pushing this stuff down teenager's throats, that's for sure.
I'm fully supportive of equal rights for intersex people, among other disenfranchised groups, but this is ridiculous.
They aren't going to get anywhere by saying "bodies are not male or female" or any of the other bullshit arguments in this video.
Intersex is a real thing, apparently it's not just one specific thing[1] and it can manifest in different variations to the sex hormones.
Intersex people should be treated fairly and equally. I don't know any intersex personally, but if I did, I hope that I could be an honest friend and treat them with compassion.
All of that said, it isn't going to change my viewpoint that most people are either female or male; for the most part, there are only two genders. Are they asking us to consider that a third, unassigned gender is a normality and the world should be divided into more than two genders?
You can identify as a robot, for all I care; but if you are born XX-chromosomal with a vagina, you're a woman, if you're born XY with a penis, you are a male. If you are born with some odd mixture of chromosome or sexual organs, then it's up to you to decide and I guess that's what the video is trying to say, after all. I'm not going to judge anyone for it.
You're making the common mistake of equating gender with sex.
Gender is how society expects a person to express themselves and how an individual identifies. Sex is the genetic component behind it.
You also ignore the hormone component of gender expression. Someone could be born male, yet look feminine as a result of other factors and how they choose to express themselves. The reverse is true for women.
The problem is that things like the USA's recent Equality Act go as far as to define sex in terms of gender identity. Trans activists are encouraging the equation of gender and sex. They want to say that people can identify as male or female because "male bodies" and "female bodies" are just a matter of perspective.
I don't think there is anything wrong with advocating for rights and fair treatment which was the original goal of the movement.
Much like in religion or politics the ones causing issues are the extremists in the LGBTQ community.
The ones who ignore well researched biological fact in order to push their agendas, the ones that censor alternative viewpoints without a counterargument, and the ones who go to extreme measures to get attention via their preferences or to attempt to get privileges above equal level to those with more common preferences.
The ones that need to be stopped are the extremist ones who are using it as a guise to push their own agendas, not those who just want equality and fair treatment.
I'm talking about the linguistic construct. It has a plus sign at the end to indicate "and every other letter and symbol in the union of all known alphabets".
Oh definitely. It's not very practical to invent a new name every time someone comes up with a new term. And all encompassing + is so vague it is almost irrelevant to add.
I don't get why people are so uptight about other peoples sexual preferences. Surely we're past the whole "Aids is a gay disease" stage by now? I know that was a big part of the uptight anti queer movement for a long time.
Hell even that term is really self defeating. (Queer)
Who I am attracted to is about what I personally like. It has nothing to do with what other people think is right or not.
that's thought policing and fuck anyone who thinks that shit is OK.
The LGBT community itself has people (TERFs) in it who believe transgender people are just men pretending to be women for sexual gratification.
Many TERFs are effectively identitarians. The unfortunate reality, is that every widespread system which can be exploited, will eventually be exploited. So society needs to be designed with this in mind. Otherwise, one is just providing ammunition to people like TERFs. (Ideological slogans like, "Listen and believe," have probably meant with good intentions, but are epistemologically bankrupt. The same goes for all erosions of due process and innocent until proven guilty.)
People still believe that apostasy should be punished by death. People still believe that Stalin did nothing wrong. People still believe that the Bourbon monarchy was a good regime and that France has faced nothing but centuries of decline since they tried to abolish it.
"People still believe" isn't a meaningful or impactful argument. You can find at least 100 people who believe virtually anything, because there are over seven billion people and the human mind has much more than a 1 in 70 million chance of believing something dumb.
We're talking about far more than a few kooks on the fringe of society, though. The beliefs I described are mainstream in some places, and anti-gay bigotry is codified into law in some countries.
I'm gay. You should believe me when I tell you that plenty of people still believe it is wrong and it does impact me in very big ways. Times that by 10 for transpeople. Do not attempt to speak for these groups when you have no idea of what their experiences are.
Sorry, my mistake. However, you are repeating the claims of crypto-homophobes that deny that anti-LGBT discrimination is still a very big problem. It is still a horrible scourge, and minimizing it is morally wrong. You may not experience too many issues due to what I imagine is a higher-middle class tech industry social status, probably in a coastal city, but others aren't so lucky. I stand by my criticism.
No, because you've demonstrated neither the capacity nor the inclination for good-faith discussion. I'm simply clarifying my original point, since I seem to have expressed it poorly in the first place.
The whole "Aids is a gay disease" stage only lasted about 10 or 15 years, during the 1980's and 1990's, and there was a lot more discrimination against homosexuality dating back to periods long, long, long before HIV even existed.
Also, you miss one key point, that gay males catch a lot more hate than lesbians. Some of that has to do with the nature of the implied sex acts. Semen and feces are both firmly in the zone of fundamental conceptual disgust, and there's nothing operating on the same visceral level with lesbian sex acts. Menstruation and lactation, after all, are part of the package, whether a woman is gay or straight.
Try tens of millions of people in Africa. This is an extremely bigoted comment. As a gay man, I am disappointed that HN is allowing viewpoints like this to be spread. This sort of thing is why the tech industry has such a bad reputation with these topics.
Such info isn't at all hard to find. It's a quick google away. It is also common knowledge that heterosexual transmission is high in some parts of Africa.
Wow, I am very disappointed by many of the comments in this thread. I would have thought that my fellow tech workers would be more rational and less bigoted than this. I am also frankly amazed that HN allows these viewpoints be spread. As a gay man, this makes this forum considerably less welcoming. Consider if instead of anti-LGBT bias, it were racism instead.
HN has a very strict commenting policy, with arguments needing to be substantiated, etc. Especially in light of that, the tolerance of posts that are not only unsubstantiated and unscientific, but also discriminatory, is bizarre.
>Consider if instead of anti-LGBT bias, it were racism instead.
Yeah, umm... plenty of "racial realists" and ethno-nationalists here too, and incels, and anti-semites. Unfortunately, alt-right, anti-progressive and and neoreactionary politics seem to have taken root in the tech community, and that's becoming as much a part of tech culture as anarchism was for a previous generation of hackers.
That said, I think this was actually one of the better threads HN has had on this subject in a while.
>HN has a very strict commenting policy, with arguments needing to be substantiated, etc.
It doesn't. All HN requires is that comments be civil, and not assume bad faith. It's up to the community to call people out on their BS, but it's not policy.
>Yeah, umm... plenty of "racial realists" and ethno-nationalists here too, and incels, and anti-semites.
I'm sure you're right, but I haven't read. Generally, bigots go for the whole meal deal. Still, I notice that blatantly transphobia is tolerated to a far greater degree than racism or homophobia. One at least has to put a bit of effort into dog-whistling in those cases.
>It doesn't. All HN requires is that comments be civil, and not assume bad faith. It's up to the community to call people out on their BS, but it's not policy.
The "not assuming bad faith" thing, which applies broadly in our society, is what allows this kind of barely-concealed dog-whistling to go on. Assuming good faith is the proper default, but common sense should be applied.
The part about the Asian woman trying to "decolonize" herself after realizing she was only dating white guys was funny and sad. She wound up going on 6 dates - 5 with black guys and one with a half Asian half white guy.
People talk a lot about "white male privilege" and I think this is probably the biggest example. As a white guy, I feel bad for my Asian male friends. Some of the most racist things I've ever heard in my life came from Asian women talking about Asian men. It must feel so shitty for those guys.
Yet it's often not in our control, since we also have to consider things besides race like cultural background.
I would date black women if I could relate to them on as much as I could from other women of other backgrounds. I've known enough black women where I know that I don't "click" with most of them, even if we get along on a platonic basis. It goes to show how culturally segregated we can still be in America. (not that it isn't as bad or worse elsewhere)
I've found that I can be attracted to all sorts of women. Different "races", sizes, shapes, ages, etc. But I'm primarily attracted to white and south-east Asian women. Why? The first one is kind of obvious since people consider me white, but I really don't know about the second other than that I seem to get along really well with them.
If someone genuinely wants to open themselves up to other sorts of people, I think that's great. The part where it would get weird for me is if someone was purposely dating people they aren't normally attracted to in order to make themselves feel good about being less racist. Everyone's talking about "fetishization" these days, but purposely dating black guys can be fetishizing even if it's well-intentioned.
> Where do our sexual preferences come from and how flexible are they?
Reminder that porn companies (including mindgeek) have a vested interest in diversifying sexual needs. I suspect that they are trying to open new market segments by pushing more and more extreme videos to the public, thus creating demand by force of repetition. They want to manipulate your most intimate urges and call it progressive. Back in November xhamster went as far as to declare that "Nofap had its roots in anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-semitic blogs", so it must be wrong /s. However Nofap was actually founded in 2011 on reddit based on thousands of young people reporting symptoms now associated with porn addiction. There's an increasing amount of evidence that prolonged exposure to porn is deeply unhealthy. https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/research/
Pornography is also a powerful political tool. I don't have enough time to write a full comment. But If you're interested, the rabbit hole starts here: http://www.psywarrior.com/sexandprop.html A fascinating overview of World War 2 leaflets.
> That site is focused on promoting an agenda over honest science.
> Your Brain on Porn - It's NOT Addictive
Reality disproves the sensationalistic headline: tens of thousands of people have declared to suffer from porn addiction (and other porn-induced dysfunctions) and you're trying to erase their own experiences. The article merely explains that brain signals of porn addicts don't strictly look like the ones of cocaine addicts. Misleading at best, deceitful at worst. Gary Wilson also replied to the article in the comments – which the author doesn't fully address. You bring up the word agenda, but I'm not sure what you're talking about. If anything, the porn lobby has a strong incentive to smear Gary Wilson's efforts, as this article seems to do. It wouldn't be the first time either: https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articl... Lastly, addiction is only one of its several potential downsides and people need to be warned about responsible porn use.
I linked to Psychology Today. Your evidence is from a site promoting some anti-porn hysteria that there is an epidemic of people crippled by porn addition. How is my article the sensationalistic one?
Do you have evidence from unbiased, scientific sources, for example not yourbrainonporn? Yes, porn usage can cross into an addictive behavior. So can video games or TV or food.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 69.1 ms ] threadAlso when are we going to stop pretending NPR isn't some liberal BS most of the time.
What kind of help are you proposing?
With a claim like that, you're going to have to provide some evidence, or at least a solid argument.
Normalizing what? There are doctors involved. What do you think the recommended course of action is for someone with gender dysphoria or someone born intersex?
For people who get intervention, the rates of depression and suicide remain alarmingly high. For children and adolescents who are told to wait until they are adults before receiving physical intervention, what are the rates of depression and suicide? I have read and heard that many such people become well adjusted as adults. For those that don't become well adjusted, there's still the option of physical intervention.
No one here is questioning that.
The sources I imagine you reach for are non-scientific and not appropriate for HN.
That's quite an Authoritarian stance. How about a mainstream liberal paper and a mainstream conservative one?
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/opinion/sunday/sunday-dia...
https://nationalpost.com/news/cbc-orders-last-minute-cancell...
Reading the reactions around the articles and media referenced in them just strike me as a combination of science and medicine along with ideological activism. My experience is that so long as people are in a community which accepts them, the vast majority of people will figure things out without the need for surgery and hormone injections.
For example, if you assume gender is binary and XX=Female/XY=Male, which gender is someone with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY)?
Because it is normal.
The gender/sexual binary is the norm, but it isn't the law, and it isn't explicitly a binary, but the top of a distribution curve. People are complicated. Gender, sexuality, preference, what expressions are acceptable in society and what are transgressive, are all complex and... dare one say... fluid.
Having a sexual preference or gender identity that falls outside the heteronormative gender binary isn't a sign of genetic defect, mental illness or moral failing, it's simply not the norm, but still natural.
We need to come to the point where being gay, bisexual, transgender, whatever is seen as no different than having an unusual eye or hair color, or being left handed.
I don't even see why they lump intersex with all the others. Intersex people are born with variations in the chromosomes/genitals/gonads and, as far as I know, that sounds like the exact definition of a defect - not sure if genetic or not. It's not a mental illness or a moral failing, but it's definitely outside the spectrum of what is considered normal physical (or chromosomal) characteristics at birth.
As far as your last comment, we're basically already there, I wish people would stop talking about it already. I think nothing when I see homosexuals, don't even look twice at trans. Zero fucks given.
On the other hand, I am a bit annoyed that nearly every TV show feels the need to push an agenda down my throat in one way or another. Does every sitcom really need a gay couple now? Is that even representative of the population as a whole?
I may have a skewed view because of where I've lived (mostly the SF Bay Area and Seattle area), but yeah, it seems to be the norm -- both at work and in my small circle of friends, I see homosexual couples.
Even in my small (~30,000 people) hometown in Ohio, homosexual couples are prevalent and don't need to hide - my nephew recently came out as gay and I was surprised when he said how accepted it is in the community, it's been nearly 30 years ago since I last lived there, and at the time, being gay was a huge stigma that had to be kept hidden.
So in my view, what you're seeing in the media mirrors what's happening in society - homosexuality is becoming mainstream. It's not an "agenda" they are pushing, but normal life.
Alternative gender identities are slowly gaining acceptance, but even in the Bay Area it can be hard for a trans person to be accepted.
There are some gay focused shows (Grace & Frankie, Will and Grace), but looking at the top 5 current sitcoms [1]
1. Big Bang Theory - none of the main characters are gay
2. Modern Family - out of 11 main characters, 2 are gay
3. Brooklyn Nine Nine - out of 10 main characters, 1 is gay
4. The Simpsons - I don't know how to count main characters, but I don't think any are gay
5. Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Out of 5 main characters, one is (or might be?) gay.
(I used Wikipedia for most of these, so I may not have gotten the counts completely accurate)
This doesn't seem to be a gross over representation of homosexuality - I wonder if you're suffering from observation bias, or if maybe you're just watching sitcoms that have more gay characters for whatever reason.
[1] - https://www.ranker.com/list/best-current-tv-sitcoms/ranker-t...
Currently watching Dear White People. It's great. Most racial minorities seem well-represented these days. Off the top of my head, Muslim-Americans and Middle-Easterners could use some more representation. Indians too.
The poster's homophobia was blatantly obvious, down to the verbatim jabs I always hear. Being upset that there are too many gay characters on tv and they are "shoving an agenda our throats" is homophobic by definition. It is 100% undisguised homophobia, without even the decorum of a dog whistle. If you can't see that, you are either unbelievably naive or are actually a homophobe who is trolling by being willfully obtuse. My money is on the latter.
It needs to be called out, not coddled. Asserting equal rights is not something that is ever done with politeness.
At any rate, I am quite sick of folks like you claiming that I should be careful not to offend people who say things like "pushing it down our throats" in reference to the existence of gay characters. I will never apologize for asserting my equality and speaking out against bigotry. I don't care if I make a bigot feel bad.
Straight white males have society's permission to become apoplectically angry about black football players kneeling. If they can do that, I should be able to call out bigots without enablers like you trying to defend them.
Your post was just idiotic. Think next time before you defend a homophobe. You are part of the problem. Be better. Next time you see bigotry, confront the bigot, not the folks calling it out.
Good for you, but "we" aren't basically already there at all.
>On the other hand, I am a bit annoyed that nearly every TV show feels the need to push an agenda down my throat in one way or another.
So... you feel the presence of gay characters in media represents an "agenda" being "pushed down your throat." You likely have no problem with straight characters, nor perhaps would even notice if a series had only straight characters, but feel that gay characters need to be justified.
Fucks given after all, I guess?
>Does every sitcom really need a gay couple now? Is that even representative of the population as a whole?
Not every sitcom has a gay couple, that's hyperbole. However, a dearth of gay characters in media does not represent the population as a whole (whatever that might mean in context) and the perception created by this historical lack of gay representation in media makes it seem as if gay people are less common in reality than they are.
So, yes, the few gay characters you see in media now probably do represent reality more accurately than would their absence, and may even still under represent the norm in some contexts.
Here[0] is a good video by one of the Council of Geeks members on why mainstream LGBT representation in media matters.
[0]https://youtu.be/XLPw5piB69E
I knew that was coming eventually ;)
You make several valid points. I will check out the video you referenced.
On the other hand - I have wondered if maybe Hollywood is over-represented by LGBT persons (not that it's a bad thing) and thus gay screenwriters/investors/producers are of course going to include their own stories in the things they create. I could be totally wrong here, just an idea I have had.
What is few to some is many to others, it seems. Maybe I just watch a lot of progressive stuff. There are a ton of teenage lesbian characters in a lot of stuff on Netflix; enough to make me think being lesbian is in vogue.
I don't know about being "over-represented," but I don't think it's unreasonable that there is a newer generation of LGBT writers and showrunners interested in writing the sort of stories that represent them, or that they never got to see when they were younger and struggling with their identity. That's not an agenda so much as writing what you know, though.
And let's not beat around the bush - if all a show wanted was token representation, "teenage lesbian" is the most palatable form it can take in a heteronormative, male-dominant culture.
If they are accepted, they are fine, and happy. This is supported by plenty of scientific research.
Basic human decency, as well as Occam's Razor, demand that we take this seriously. And to deny it is nothing short of sadism.
I understand this video is long but it goes in to detail as to why the "scientific research" has been, well, doctored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mtQ1geeD_c
Um, no. Reality dictates that everything is based on relativity and probability, but the logic that everything technically falls into a grey area doesn't mean that abstractions like male and female, man and woman (silos that the vast vast majority of people fall into) aren't useful, practical, or real.
If one believes that binary is bullshit, then be consistent and accept metaphysical nihilism. Accept that binary in computers is "bullshit" because a 1 can be represented by an infinite number of voltages, and sometimes 0 is represented by a really low voltage. Ignorant binary-normative CPUs!
I don't care how people identify, how they have sex, how they love, etc. People should be able to express their true selves, but I'm getting tired of the constant disdain against normalcy. I've never quite fit in anywhere I go so I think I can understand what it's like to want society to conform to one's vision. Part of being a part of society is some level of conformity and accepting that other people aren't like you.
If binary-non-conforming people want acceptance, then they ought to quit acting like my sex and my gender are bullshit. Gay people didn't achieve their current status in society, as better as it could be, by telling gay people that there's no such thing as "straight" sex.
> Gender is about your identity, your expression, and it's often based on your idea of sex.
If gender isn't related to the perception or expression of biological sex, then what is it? If sex is optional for gender, then how is gender different from fashion?
I could go on point by point, but those two things really address most of the video.
EDIT: For clarity, I'm not saying that I don't think that gender isn't a form of fashion. I'm saying that, if the variable of sex is removed, then it's a totally useless word that can be substituted with the word fashion. (in which case it's bizarre that people are trying to make other people like their sense of fashion)
Intersex means that you have mix of male and female organs/hormons. Or you look like women, but don't have fitting chromosomes. Operation is done on theory that it will be easier for you this way.
> If gender isn't related to the perception or expression of biological sex, then what is it? If sex is optional for gender, then how is gender different from fashion?
Gender afaik is not all that different for fashion. Writing in general and especially poetry was considered male thing. It was weird for girl to do it. Now it is considered girl thing (at least where I live).
Consciously and subconsciously, people do and don't do things based on what makes them look weird vs normal or popular or fitting in. Or they just follow cues (every boy in class got star wars sticker and every girl barbie one so they just follow that). My understanding of gender is that it is what you do cause of these things.
> Gender afaik is not all that different for fashion. Writing in general and especially poetry was considered male thing. It was weird for girl to do it. Now it is considered girl thing (at least where I live).
Yeah, it's not that different from fashion because it is a form of fashion. My point is that if gender is sex-optional, then it's a totally useless term that's superseded by the word fashion.
> Consciously and subconsciously, people do and don't do things based on what makes them look weird vs normal or popular or fitting in. Or they just follow cues
That's true. And it's also true that people have certain behaviors because of biological conditions acting upon them. For instance, do you think that most females are statistically attracted to males just because it's normal, or that females can be conditioned to be homosexual if society worked differently? If not, then why not also apply the steps you use to reach that conclusion to gender expression?
> For instance, do you think that most females are statistically attracted to males just because it's normal, or that females can be conditioned to be homosexual if society worked differently?
Homosexual acts are more common in single sex groups like prisons. So yeah, humans have certain flexibility. Bisexual people would be more likely to choose opposite sex partner in homosexuality tolerant society then in the one where it is frowned upon and illegal.
> If not, then why not also apply the steps you use to reach that conclusion to gender expression?
Cause there is this neat trick where some or unknown amount of hormonal impact is extrapolated to all of gender differences as you are trying to do here. Or something completely unrelated being extrapolated at gender as you also do here. There was no biological change that would influence writing affinity, just social one. When women were all expected to be stay at home, some of their behavior was influenced by the lonely-whole-day stay at home person experience - that would lead to different gender expression too compared to males who went to work with other people.
That is why.
In a lot of ways it isn't. Gender is often performative in nature. The idea that gender is binary is fairly reductive, and as most people know isn't a very descriptive way to view the world. You're more likely to be a mix of masculine and feminine traits than a binary one-or-the-other.
Viewing the world via binary genders puts people into categories that can be negative. This is why gender bias exists, because we view men with certain traits and women with certain traits. If society was less binary in its approach to gender we might have to make less assumptions about people.
This is similar to the old way of approaching race science. X people are good at Y, and A people are good at B. We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial.
Life is often performative in nature. We need to think about this when it comes to culture and society. If we want ourselves and our community to become wealthy, then we need to model our behavior to people who are well off. Likewise, we need to avoid acting like people who are failing.
In this, human beings inevitably reinterpret and change things. In part, it's a matter of figuring out the essentials. (The opposite of cargo cult behavior.)
Yes, that actually is the idea about having a binary. It's reductive. At the end of the day, a sperm and an egg have to meet for a population to propagate, and seeing as how the vast majority in a population that sexually reproduces have either set of organs that make sperm or eggs, it becomes naturally efficient to rule out who is mating material and who isn't.
For instance, a mostly heterosexual person is going to almost always be interested in copulating with the opposite sex, and it's convenient that most people of the opposite sex display gender that is mostly in line with the opposite sex. It's just that most of us really don't find it mostly useful to be using the word "most" when we're talking about things most of the time to acknowledge that mostly nothing is binary, so we decide to fit everything in to categories so we can assess them. If someone falls within a certain circle of a Venn diagram, then pragmatically they are considered within that category even if they don't perfectly match it.
> This is similar to the old way of approaching race science. X people are good at Y, and A people are good at B. We've pushed back on categorizing people by race and it's been beneficial.
We pushed back on "race science" because it's not scientific.
The problem is that it is not normally pragmatic. It's not pragmatic for a woman in the workforce to be associated with feminine characteristics whether she displays them or not. It's not pragmatic for a more feminine boy to be told by his parents that he needs to act more masculine. A lot of these things are purely social constructs.
No one is arguing that sex isn't a thing, or that you don't need a male and female to create life. No one is even saying that your biological sex has zero bearing on your gender identity. The point I am making is that categorization based on a binary spectrum of gender is not pragmatic and is not scientific.
It is a good point IMO, and from the perspective of the theory of embodied cognition, to which I highly subscribe, I've always had a hard time thinking that male and female minds (intersex set aside) can just interchangeable. There are physical and physiological differences, such as hormones, that must make a difference in cognition and somehow must extend to behaviour/tastes.
It's an inference given a theory, which questions me. Not trying to be affirmative here.
But many people fall outside of the bimodal peaks and are actively discriminated against by people who do not believe there is a distribution in the first place, or who believe that if you are not sufficiently close to one of the peaks that you are an unfit human being.
This is why I think you're taking it out of context. You are clearly not the target audience of that statement. You understand that the two mainstream gender labels are, as you say, 'useful' and 'practical'. You understand that '1' can represent many voltages. Labels are useful, as long as you understand the level of certainty they represent. The target audience of that statement believes they are the only thing, period (taking a simplistic view), or who make a value judgement based on how close one is to one of the bimodal peaks (taking a normative view).
Certainly I don't represent everything you'll read that's said or written by advocates for people with different genders, but there is illogic on both 'sides' of the arguments on gender and sexuality. Here's how I look at it. Regardless of the illogic, which side is more harmful? The side that is making value judgements based on faulty evidence and using those to propose and enforce sometimes tremendously painful rules on others, or the side that is sometimes making illogical arguments in an attempt to be accepted by society?
"A trans woman's biology is a female biology" is just a statement I cannot agree with at all. One of my best friends growing up was a guy I'll call Adam. In high school Adam was an incredible athlete (he was a runner and swimmer) and held a lot of county records and was the third fastest at the 400m hurdles in the state. Adam came out as trans around his 21st birthday and now lives a woman I'll call Alice. Alice is a trans woman. The idea that her biology is that of a person born with two X chromosomes and a vagina is a little ridiculous to me. I see Alice as a woman today because that's what she wants and it doesn't make a difference to our friendship however I know Alice has a penis and spent 90% of her life living as a boy/man. FWIW, she and I have talked a lot about this and shares my views. In fact my views on the matter are largely influenced by her perspective on it.
I often wonder if the trans-rights movement is stuck in this kind of rhetorical cul-de-sac because the gay rights movement leaned so hard on "born this way" to make its case. That made sense because it moved the discussion away from sexual morality toward fairness. No doubt necessary to win the concessions and public opinion change of the 00s-10s.
In reality it shouldn't matter how innate sexual preference or gender identity are. People should be free to identify and fuck as they please. Unfortunately some on the ultra-woke side of the trans rights movement have continued to paint themselves into the corner of "born this way" but then have to backfill their biological epistemology to fit their rhetoric.
Both formulations are wrong, but people tend to go all in arguing one or the other. The problem is now we have the same crew that was 100% social construct arguing for 100% biological determinism and the inconsistency of worldview makes them sound ridiculous.
Funny thing, but back in the 80's, there was a kerfuffle in the LGBT community on campus where I was going to school. (I lived in a house with some prominent people in the group, including the campus president. We also deliberately chose a gay man as our house adviser.) Many militant LGBT people were basically bashing the bisexuals, calling them "fence sitters." Even going to the level of yelling at them and coming up with an ideology of denying the existence of bisexuals.
There were also a number of couples who got effectively harassed because the man was declared by the crowd to be a "self denying" gay man and the woman was similarly declared to be a "baby dyke." There was this ideology that this form of attraction wasn't "real." Isn't society butting its nose into people's love lives the problem in the first place? I say we just leave people alone and let them work it out. Everyone should be "live and let live" as much as possible. From what I've seen, this is by far the best policy.
Looking back on it all, those events were just another instance of angry teens and 20-somethings running around acting as if they knew everything there is to know about a big, complex subject. It's a big, complex subject we're all too close to and therefore biased about.
(The problem in 2019, is that the hot blazing centers of our culture create incentives for the exact opposite of the "live and let live" mentality.)
The reason "society" -- aka other people -- does that is because our sexual choices often have impacts on other people. If you sleep around casually, wind up pregnant out of wedlock and/or with a terrible, incurable STD, this will impact other people quite substantially. If you continue to sleep around casually afterwards and don't tell your lovers of your diagnosis, you are spreading disease in an outright malicious and incredibly selfish fashion.
Etc.
Most people who want society to butt out of their sex lives also want society to rescue them when something terrible happens. If people were all "It's all good. I'll just sleep in a ditch and wait to die of AIDS. I don't need nothing, thanks! I did this to myself." you might see less pushback from society concerning what people choose to do behind closed doors.
Or, you know, if someone just wants to masturbate and not involve anyone in how they get their sexual needs met, cool. But that isn't how most people operate.
Unfortunately, most people have a fairly poor track record of thinking in earnest about how their sexual preferences, predilections and choices impact other people. In many cases, they do a poor job of thinking about how this will impact the people they are actually having sex with. They often don't think at all about others beyond that who may be impacted as well.
I am not justifying homophobia, etc. But a policy of "live and let live" is not as simple as most people perhaps wish it were.
I agree so much with this and it's always how i've tried to be. I've never really understood why people choose to make this their business. They don't have to. They really don't. It's just never made sense to me why what two other people choose to do together would be anything to do with me or why people would expend so much energy worrying about it.
There's just never seemed like a good reason to waste time and energy, judging, worrying, or even really thinking about what kind of people other people are attracted to.
> The idea that her biology is that of a person born with two X chromosomes and a vagina is a little ridiculous to me
Well, there's a logical resolution here. The biology of women contains cis female biology as well as trans female biology. No contradiction between these two points.
The point of making distinctions is because those distinctions are useful to us. Which distinctions we make are up to our discretion. Not only does our understanding inform the distinctions we make, the distinctions we make inform our understanding.
Here's an example. Our culture is obsessed with elaborate social structures based on genitals, isn't that weird? If those cultural practices are rooted in biology, and we want cultural recognition of trans women, then we are saying that trans women have the biology of women. No logical problem here.
Medically, it is arguable that trans women have female biology. That's not saying trans women have the same biology as cis women. Indeed, some trans women need to see a gynecologist, even. Both cis and trans women can take drugs to correct hormonal imbalances. I know a cis women who needs to take spironolactone for high testosterone just like many trans women need to; a family friend was on HRT for menopausal symptoms, estradiol, which many trans women take too. I would not be _at all_ surprised if there were a trans woman and a cis woman on the same exact hormone therapy. So not only can we make the category of "female biology" wider in a medical setting without making a logical mistake (subcategories: trans female biology, cis female biology), there really is overlap between the medical needs of trans women and cis women.
This is not frivolous. Trans women get a serious amount of discrimination and contempt from many medical providers because of this cultural and medical intransigence against them. This change of distinctions has an important consequence to the quality of life of many women, and, in the long term, all of us.
> Indeed, some trans women need to see a gynecologist, even.
This is also not true. No transwomen ever needs to see a gynecologist except as a form of validation.
> The biology of women contains cis female biology as well as trans female biology.
This is a false statement and the deleted post said as much. Is a response to this sort of thing not allowed? What a load of nonsense.
> "Transwomen" are just males, i.e. men. They have male biology. This is not frivolous, and not up for debate...
This is unsubstantive because it is a claim without accompanying support. If the intention was to counter the original point, it should be done with actual information. “Not up for debate” is a giveaway that the commenter doesn't want to participate in a discussion, and this is a discussion site.
> This is also not true. No transwomen ever needs to see a gynecologist except as a form of validation.
There is also no basis provided for this statement, therefore it is unsubstantive.
Thoughtful discourse contains information grounded in our shared reality. What's going on here, and not just in this subthread, is a flamewar. This is not where we learn—this is where learning goes to die in a swamp of cortisol and teeth gnashing.
From this statement, I think you'd agree that gender is a far more important aspect of personal identity than sex is.
If I'm completely honest I am quite happy for people to identify however they like. I have no preference or agenda whatsoever. It's not something I give a huge amount of thought to really.
It creates real problems and exacerbates existing ones. In finance, you need to predict a person's likely spending, longevity, income, etc. to plan investments, insurance, etc.
The best data is from longitudinal (tracking individuals over time) post-retirement surveys. These take decades to run, and you need a large body of people committed to consistently doing lengthy surveys each year. Hopefully we'll get additional research to show where we can safely match trans persons into the larger surveys.
The issue is, if you dogmatically make claims about someone's biology, you could be right by chance, but everyone providing these services is ethically (fiduciarily) bound to have a justifiable reason for the advice they give to customers.
Some predictions don't seem like they'd be wrong; a trans person is likely to behave the way you'd expect for, e.g., spending on clothing and similar consumer goods. (Though that's pure conjecture.)
But there are critical numbers like lifespan that have big effects on your investment strategy, and men and women differ by 7 years. (Err that a person lives longer and they lose out on growth. Err the other way, and they're overly exposed to risk.)
I suspect many firms will just say, "you have very specific health needs and need to consult a doctor." But that's the industry standard, "our advice is to figure it out yourself," cop out, technically ethical but useless.
Unless this is for investments made by your parents at birth, the difference is smaller; life expectancy at birth differs a lot by gender, but by early adulthood it's narrowed a lot because very early death is more common in males. I think it's about 3 years for current 20 year olds.
There's a number of ways that transgender individuals tend to have an number of biological features more typical of cisgender members of the gender of their identity than of cisgender members of their assigned-at-birth gender; there's other ways that they don't.
It's perfectly valid—and deeply accurate—to say a transwoman’s biology is a female biology, which implicitly not only rejects the idea that it is the singular female biology but also rejects the idea of such a biology. It also doesn't reject that it has aspects in common with some male biologies that might be unlike some other female biologies.
I'm fully supportive of equal rights for intersex people, among other disenfranchised groups, but this is ridiculous.
They aren't going to get anywhere by saying "bodies are not male or female" or any of the other bullshit arguments in this video.
Intersex is a real thing, apparently it's not just one specific thing[1] and it can manifest in different variations to the sex hormones.
Intersex people should be treated fairly and equally. I don't know any intersex personally, but if I did, I hope that I could be an honest friend and treat them with compassion.
All of that said, it isn't going to change my viewpoint that most people are either female or male; for the most part, there are only two genders. Are they asking us to consider that a third, unassigned gender is a normality and the world should be divided into more than two genders?
You can identify as a robot, for all I care; but if you are born XX-chromosomal with a vagina, you're a woman, if you're born XY with a penis, you are a male. If you are born with some odd mixture of chromosome or sexual organs, then it's up to you to decide and I guess that's what the video is trying to say, after all. I'm not going to judge anyone for it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
Gender is how society expects a person to express themselves and how an individual identifies. Sex is the genetic component behind it.
You also ignore the hormone component of gender expression. Someone could be born male, yet look feminine as a result of other factors and how they choose to express themselves. The reverse is true for women.
My mistake. I think I have heard this before.
Much like in religion or politics the ones causing issues are the extremists in the LGBTQ community.
The ones who ignore well researched biological fact in order to push their agendas, the ones that censor alternative viewpoints without a counterargument, and the ones who go to extreme measures to get attention via their preferences or to attempt to get privileges above equal level to those with more common preferences.
The ones that need to be stopped are the extremist ones who are using it as a guise to push their own agendas, not those who just want equality and fair treatment.
Who I am attracted to is about what I personally like. It has nothing to do with what other people think is right or not.
that's thought policing and fuck anyone who thinks that shit is OK.
Nope. People still believe that.
People still believe that God sends hurricanes and terrorist attacks to punish societies that tolerate LGBT people.
People still believe that LGBT people are just closet pedophiles, and equate accepting them with accepting bestiality.
The LGBT community itself has people (TERFs) in it who believe transgender people are just men pretending to be women for sexual gratification.
We haven't really moved past any of that.
Not all transwomen are like this, but autogynephilia is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanchard%27s_transsexualism_t...
"TERF" is also a word used to describe anyone who understands human sexual dimorphism.
Many TERFs are effectively identitarians. The unfortunate reality, is that every widespread system which can be exploited, will eventually be exploited. So society needs to be designed with this in mind. Otherwise, one is just providing ammunition to people like TERFs. (Ideological slogans like, "Listen and believe," have probably meant with good intentions, but are epistemologically bankrupt. The same goes for all erosions of due process and innocent until proven guilty.)
"People still believe" isn't a meaningful or impactful argument. You can find at least 100 people who believe virtually anything, because there are over seven billion people and the human mind has much more than a 1 in 70 million chance of believing something dumb.
Also, you miss one key point, that gay males catch a lot more hate than lesbians. Some of that has to do with the nature of the implied sex acts. Semen and feces are both firmly in the zone of fundamental conceptual disgust, and there's nothing operating on the same visceral level with lesbian sex acts. Menstruation and lactation, after all, are part of the package, whether a woman is gay or straight.
Why would you move past CDC statistics? https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/overview/ataglance.html
Do you have more precise and reliable numbers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Also, I'm fully aware that you don't have any reliable data and are just hoping to make an appeal to emotions.
Here's a couple of pieces I found in short order:
https://www.jwatch.org/jw199110040000006/1991/10/04/heterose...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8420583
Looks more US-centric than bigoted to me. You are disappointed HN allows statistics gathered by the CDC to be spread?
HN has a very strict commenting policy, with arguments needing to be substantiated, etc. Especially in light of that, the tolerance of posts that are not only unsubstantiated and unscientific, but also discriminatory, is bizarre.
Yeah, umm... plenty of "racial realists" and ethno-nationalists here too, and incels, and anti-semites. Unfortunately, alt-right, anti-progressive and and neoreactionary politics seem to have taken root in the tech community, and that's becoming as much a part of tech culture as anarchism was for a previous generation of hackers.
That said, I think this was actually one of the better threads HN has had on this subject in a while.
>HN has a very strict commenting policy, with arguments needing to be substantiated, etc.
It doesn't. All HN requires is that comments be civil, and not assume bad faith. It's up to the community to call people out on their BS, but it's not policy.
I'm sure you're right, but I haven't read. Generally, bigots go for the whole meal deal. Still, I notice that blatantly transphobia is tolerated to a far greater degree than racism or homophobia. One at least has to put a bit of effort into dog-whistling in those cases.
>It doesn't. All HN requires is that comments be civil, and not assume bad faith. It's up to the community to call people out on their BS, but it's not policy.
The "not assuming bad faith" thing, which applies broadly in our society, is what allows this kind of barely-concealed dog-whistling to go on. Assuming good faith is the proper default, but common sense should be applied.
People talk a lot about "white male privilege" and I think this is probably the biggest example. As a white guy, I feel bad for my Asian male friends. Some of the most racist things I've ever heard in my life came from Asian women talking about Asian men. It must feel so shitty for those guys.
If you see https://theblog.okcupid.com/race-and-attraction-2009-2014-10...
In 2014 :
---------
Asian women preferred Asian men
White women preferred White men
Black Women preferred Black men
and Latino preferred Latino men
Where as in 2009
---------
Asian women were preferring White men
but its interesting to see that Asian men almost always preferred Asian women
I would date black women if I could relate to them on as much as I could from other women of other backgrounds. I've known enough black women where I know that I don't "click" with most of them, even if we get along on a platonic basis. It goes to show how culturally segregated we can still be in America. (not that it isn't as bad or worse elsewhere)
I've found that I can be attracted to all sorts of women. Different "races", sizes, shapes, ages, etc. But I'm primarily attracted to white and south-east Asian women. Why? The first one is kind of obvious since people consider me white, but I really don't know about the second other than that I seem to get along really well with them.
If someone genuinely wants to open themselves up to other sorts of people, I think that's great. The part where it would get weird for me is if someone was purposely dating people they aren't normally attracted to in order to make themselves feel good about being less racist. Everyone's talking about "fetishization" these days, but purposely dating black guys can be fetishizing even if it's well-intentioned.
Reminder that porn companies (including mindgeek) have a vested interest in diversifying sexual needs. I suspect that they are trying to open new market segments by pushing more and more extreme videos to the public, thus creating demand by force of repetition. They want to manipulate your most intimate urges and call it progressive. Back in November xhamster went as far as to declare that "Nofap had its roots in anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-semitic blogs", so it must be wrong /s. However Nofap was actually founded in 2011 on reddit based on thousands of young people reporting symptoms now associated with porn addiction. There's an increasing amount of evidence that prolonged exposure to porn is deeply unhealthy. https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/research/
Pornography is also a powerful political tool. I don't have enough time to write a full comment. But If you're interested, the rabbit hole starts here: http://www.psywarrior.com/sexandprop.html A fascinating overview of World War 2 leaflets.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/2013...
> Your Brain on Porn - It's NOT Addictive
Reality disproves the sensationalistic headline: tens of thousands of people have declared to suffer from porn addiction (and other porn-induced dysfunctions) and you're trying to erase their own experiences. The article merely explains that brain signals of porn addicts don't strictly look like the ones of cocaine addicts. Misleading at best, deceitful at worst. Gary Wilson also replied to the article in the comments – which the author doesn't fully address. You bring up the word agenda, but I'm not sure what you're talking about. If anything, the porn lobby has a strong incentive to smear Gary Wilson's efforts, as this article seems to do. It wouldn't be the first time either: https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/relevant-research-and-articl... Lastly, addiction is only one of its several potential downsides and people need to be warned about responsible porn use.
I linked to Psychology Today. Your evidence is from a site promoting some anti-porn hysteria that there is an epidemic of people crippled by porn addition. How is my article the sensationalistic one?
Do you have evidence from unbiased, scientific sources, for example not yourbrainonporn? Yes, porn usage can cross into an addictive behavior. So can video games or TV or food.