Non-gendered kids

[poppy]

26 minutes ago, texasmom33 said:

I think it's a product of identity politics. 

 

I don't really understand what you mean when you use that term. I know what I think it means, but context wise, I'm guessing you might have a different idea. Would you mind sharing? (I promise to not bite your head off.)

[bolt.]

16 hours ago, StellaM said:

 

 

I was waiting for someone to play the 'you guys have an obsession with genitals, ick!' card. 

This forum never disappoints.

 

It’s not that “you guys” (or anyone) have an obsession with genitals. It’s that none of us particularly care to reveal our genitals, but we are all participants in a language which requires that information very early and very often in everyday conversation.

Some of us find that dynamic normal and unobjectionable — Which makes sense. For one thing, it’s the way we have always done things. Also, 99A% of the time there are enough social indications of gender that we can guess the correct words without difficulty.

Some of us find that dynamic strange (in an objective theoretical sense) even though it is familiar. It just doesn’t seem like it *should* be the one point of information you need about someone in order to converse in the third person... it’s not just weird that we need any personal information to do that. It’s particularly weird that we normally consider genitals themselves to be ‘seriously private things’ but genital-based data to be ‘required public information’.

Maybe it’s related — because we are so sex-private, therefore we have to be be gender-public? Just because of the importance of sex itself, did it develop these diametrically-opposed taboos?

Its interesting, that’s all, and it was nicely illustrated by the poster you responded to. It isn’t the accusation you thought it was.

Edited October 29, 2018 by bolt.

[Bluegoat]

42 minutes ago, poppy said:

 

So the question was, if a young person asked you to use a preferred pronoun, would you agree. And your answer is, I would judge case-by-case, and if I felt like i'd be made to feel bad if I refused, then I would refuse?    Trying to understand here.

Re: the bolded, sounds like your argument is that  social pressure makes people want to rebel. Do you use that logic when talking about race as well?  Or any other social category, other than this particular topic?

 

Ah, no, feeling bad has nothing to do with what I would do, nor does social pressure.  For that matter, I don't think it's what I was saying about the general response either.  

People don't like having their good will manipulated to ends they never did intend.  I am not going to agree to do something that is going to be used in a different way than is implied or intended.  A matter of etiquette does not mean either that there is some rights people have over pronouns, nor that I personally or anyone else really recognize gender as more fundamental than sex, or as some sort of essential ontological category, or that person with a penis is in fact a woman and always has been.

 When a polite usage is manipulated in that way, you will find the polite usage is likely to end.  Not because people feel badly, or are being emotionally resistant, but because they see they are being manipulated and stop allowing it.

[EmseB]

1 hour ago, texasmom33 said:

I think it's a product of identity politics. 

Or intersectionality, where the person who can claim to be the most marginalized/victimized retains all power to say who is allowed to dictate terms and speak on what topic. Kind of what Poppy was talking about in her post about autism or race issues.

[maize]

28 minutes ago, bolt. said:

It’s not that “you guys” (or anyone) have an obsession with genitals. It’s that none of us particularly care to reveal our genitals, but we are all participants in a language which requires that information very early and very often in everyday conversation.

Some of us find that dynamic normal and unobjectionable — Which makes sense. For one thing, it’s the way we have always done things. Also, 99A% of the time there are enough social indications of gender that we can guess the correct words without difficulty.

Some of us find that dynamic strange (in an objective theoretical sense) even though it is familiar. It just doesn’t seem like it *should* be the one point of information you need about someone in order to converse in the third person... it’s not just weird that we need any personal information to do that. It’s particularly weird that we normally consider genitals themselves to be ‘seriously private things’ but genital-based data to be ‘required public information’.

Maybe it’s related — because we are so sex-private, therefore we have to be be gender-public? Just because of the importance of sex itself, did it develop these diametrically-opposed taboos?

Its interesting, that’s all, and it was nicely illustrated by the poster you responded to. It isn’t the accusation you thought it was.

Sex is quite relevant to a great deal of human experience; humans are categorical thinkers and sex is a fundamental human category.

The category is going to remain relevant regardless of pronouns (as the many cultures whose languages do not use gendered pronouns demonstrate; not one is a culture in which an individual's  sex is socially irrelevant).

[Scarlett]

This topic always confuses me so much.  People are more than just their genitals, but definitely genitals have a part in over all identity.  

I am always very unsettled when I can’t  identify whether someone is a man or  a woman. Shrug.  I guess I am not very progressive.  

[Farrar]

4 minutes ago, EmseB said:

Or intersectionality, where the person who can claim to be the most marginalized/victimized retains all power to say who is allowed to dictate terms and speak on what topic. Kind of what Poppy was talking about in her post about autism or race issues.

That's simply not what intersectionality means. Intersectionality is looking at the intersection between different forms of oppression -  for example, that an cis Asian gay man is going to be experiencing some forms of oppression and some forms of privilege, just like a trans white woman or a straight cis Native woman or anyone really and that we need to understand these along different axes. Yes, part of it is recognizing the need to listen to people talk about their own experience of oppression instead of presuming that - because one person is a woman, that she can speak for all women - or that because someone is LGBTQ that they can speak for the experiences of the whole queer community. But the primary piece is that intersection part. What you're talking about is a related concept, but not intersectionality per se.

[EmseB]

 

13 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Ah, no, feeling bad has nothing to do with what I would do, nor does social pressure.  For that matter, I don't think it's what I was saying about the general response either.  

People don't like having their good will manipulated to ends they never did intend.  I am not going to agree to do something that is going to be used in a different way than is implied or intended.  A matter of etiquette does not mean either that there is some rights people have over pronouns, nor that I personally or anyone else really recognize gender as more fundamental than sex, or as some sort of essential ontological category, or that person with a penis is in fact a woman and always has been.

 When a polite usage is manipulated in that way, you will find the polite usage is likely to end.  Not because people feel badly, or are being emotionally resistant, but because they see they are being manipulated and stop allowing it.

This reminds me of certain door-to-door religious proselytizers. I don't know if it's a good metaphor, but: they hand out literature and mark anyone who takes said literature as "interested" (so they return to that house), even if someone verbally says they are not interested. Amongst themselves the line is, "Well, they wouldn't have taken the literature if they weren't interested," while most people will take something handed to them in order to be polite. Then, when the internal motivation is discovered, people go against their politeness instincts, refuse to take what someone is trying to hand them, tell them not to come back, and the proselytizers say something like, "I wonder why people are so rude to us. We're just trying to hand out literature."

Like here, the line is, "Why wouldn't you just be kind and use the word I'm asking you to use," and then later, "When everyone is acknowledging that I'm she, so they must agree that biology does not matter."  (simplified greatly, of course, but just to give the idea). So is it rude to not use prefered pronouns? Maybe. But what if you're asking someone to go against what they fundamentally believe to be true about science, biology, what it means to be a man/woman, etc.? Isn't it impolite to expect them to forgo all of that out of politeness on their part? Why must their beliefs be considered rude but not the other way around? And if it's, for example, a mother being asked to tell her child that she is he, or not she...and the mother believes this is not only wrong but harmful to their child? And that pronoun usage is seen as assent to a whole school of thought about gender and sex as a whole? 

That's my take on why it's not just about politness or kindness. And add in the fact of governments starting to compel speech and citing people for not using those pronouns? It's authoritarian and dangerous.

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

This topic always confuses me so much.  People are more than just their genitals, but definitely genitals have a part in over all identity.  

I am always very unsettled when I can’t  identify whether someone is a man or  a woman. Shrug.  I guess I am not very progressive.  

Yeah, I never really thought about it, but it does seem to be one of those things we need to know for reasons we can't explain.

I find my kids sometimes asking me this question about someone when it doesn't matter at all.  Like the person who is serving us at a restaurant or whatever.

Maybe it does matter but in ways we don't realize at the level of language.

[EmseB]

2 minutes ago, Farrar said:

That's simply not what intersectionality means. Intersectionality is looking at the intersection between different forms of oppression -  for example, that an cis Asian gay man is going to be experiencing some forms of oppression and some forms of privilege, just like a trans white woman or a straight cis Native woman or anyone really and that we need to understand these along different axes. Yes, part of it is recognizing the need to listen to people talk about their own experience of oppression instead of presuming that - because one person is a woman, that she can speak for all women - or that because someone is LGBTQ that they can speak for the experiences of the whole queer community. But the primary piece is that intersection part. What you're talking about is a related concept, but not intersectionality per se.

Well, yes, I doubt I could distill intersectionality down to two lines on a message board, but in any case, a direct result of intersectionality and its ideas has been that people that fall on certain axes are allowed to speak about such things, define terms, etc., and others are not. The axes determine who has the authority to speak about issues related to that group. If someone is more marginalized or victimized, they are allowed to speak on topics that others are not, or those others must listen and heed what more marginalized persons are saying.

Which is really what all of this is coming down to. Women are a marginalized group, but trans women are more marginalized, so women, regardless of their views on sex or gender, must acquiesce to what trans women say about themselves in defining themselves as women, biologically and in all other ways. It is a philosophy and set of standards that seems to be eating its own because in the end everyone must strive to be more and more marginalized than other groups in order to have any kind of authority on a subject or to have the power to be listened to in a meaningful way.

[Bluegoat]

13 minutes ago, SKL said:

Yeah, I never really thought about it, but it does seem to be one of those things we need to know for reasons we can't explain.

I find my kids sometimes asking me this question about someone when it doesn't matter at all.  Like the person who is serving us at a restaurant or whatever.

Maybe it does matter but in ways we don't realize at the level of language.

 

I suspect that it matters in a very hind brain, who are you going to procreate with/who might throw your baby out of a tree/etc  kind of way

[Bluegoat]

7 minutes ago, EmseB said:

Well, yes, I doubt I could distill intersectionality down to two lines on a message board, but in any case, a direct result of intersectionality and its ideas has been that people that fall on certain axes are allowed to speak about such things, define terms, etc., and others are not. The axes determine who has the authority to speak about issues related to that group. If someone is more marginalized or victimized, they are allowed to speak on topics that others are not, or those others must listen and heed what more marginalized persons are saying.

Which is really what all of this is coming down to. Women are a marginalized group, but trans women are more marginalized, so women, regardless of their views on sex or gender, must acquiesce to what trans women say about themselves in defining themselves as women, biologically and in all other ways. It is a philosophy and set of standards that seems to be eating its own because in the end everyone must strive to be more and more marginalized than other groups in order to have any kind of authority on a subject or to have the power to be listened to in a meaningful way.

 

I think this sort of thing is inevitable, and it's something that we need to be really careful about in any kind of interaction where people can assert power.  Empowering an oppressed group creates another new way to assert power, and even the idea that such things need to happen creates that opportunity.  Groups of people are all pretty similar in having individuals with a strong will to power, and they will use whatever avenues are open, even if it is membership in an oppressed group.  It might be one they in fact belong to, or it could be one that's been created.

And most of this isn't, IMO, a conscious thing, it's like a drive to find the most effective and efficient ladder to asserting power that is possible for that individual.  Even better in a way if people naively think that an oppressed group can't reverse it's position in relation to an oppressing group, or that it would be obvious or the same kind of use of power.

I think a big issue with the increased focus of identity is that now, almost all policy is seen through that lens, and so its created all kinds of new identities.  And then public policy becomes a competition rather than a collective endeavour.

[Bluegoat]

5 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

It matters in terms of safety. I know if I have to choose who is walking behind me at night, I'll choose the female every time. If I have to tell a young child what to do if they get lost, there's a reason I say 'find a mommy with children'. 

And it matters in terms of comfort and dignity. For example, my strong preference for pap smears and breast exams is to see my female GP. My strong preference when changing in the open changing room at my local pool is to change with other females.

And it matters in terms of heatlh. Anyone treating you needs to know your sex. Not your gender. Your biological sex.

It matters in terms of keeping data. 

And, yes, in terms of the hind brain. We're still mammals, after all.

 

I think all of that is true, it's the more conscious element though.  That discomfort when you can't quite place someone I think is more of the deep primitive brain stuff,  Though safety is part o that for sure - strange males have always been more volatile, and it's important to be able to work out the relations in the group, which are often related to the sexes of the members.

[moonflower]

28 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Yeah, it's nothing to do with feelings. 

Tbh my predominant feeling in these situations is argh, this is so awkward, I wish I didn't think this was important, I hate it when people hate me. That's my actual feeling

It's a political position, not a personal one. Women are allowed to take political positions, vocally, even persistently.

 

I have this exact same experience re: not eating factory farmed animal products.  People say, oh, you fee badly for the animals, it's an argument based on emotion (and therefore invalid I guess?) but the feeling is just what you describe: "argh, this is so awkward, I wish I didn't think this was important, I hate it when people hate me."  The argument itself (n my case) is not based on emotion, but on the idea that it is wrong to be complicit in avoidable suffering of innocents.

[poppy]

31 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

I think this sort of thing is inevitable, and it's something that we need to be really careful about in any kind of interaction where people can assert power.  Empowering an oppressed group creates another new way to assert power, and even the idea that such things need to happen creates that opportunity.  Groups of people are all pretty similar in having individuals with a strong will to power, and they will use whatever avenues are open, even if it is membership in an oppressed group.  It might be one they in fact belong to, or it could be one that's been created.

And most of this isn't, IMO, a conscious thing, it's like a drive to find the most effective and efficient ladder to asserting power that is possible for that individual.  Even better in a way if people naively think that an oppressed group can't reverse it's position in relation to an oppressing group, or that it would be obvious or the same kind of use of power.

I think a big issue with the increased focus of identity is that now, almost all policy is seen through that lens, and so its created all kinds of new identities.  And then public policy becomes a competition rather than a collective endeavour.

 

You must not be in the US, if you think policy is driven by this. We are very much on a "stripping away protections" whirlwind tour.

[poppy]

1 hour ago, EmseB said:

 

This reminds me of certain door-to-door religious proselytizers. I don't know if it's a good metaphor, but: they hand out literature and mark anyone who takes said literature as "interested" (so they return to that house), even if someone verbally says they are not interested. Amongst themselves the line is, "Well, they wouldn't have taken the literature if they weren't interested," while most people will take something handed to them in order to be polite. Then, when the internal motivation is discovered, people go against their politeness instincts, refuse to take what someone is trying to hand them, tell them not to come back, and the proselytizers say something like, "I wonder why people are so rude to us. We're just trying to hand out literature."

Like here, the line is, "Why wouldn't you just be kind and use the word I'm asking you to use," and then later, "When everyone is acknowledging that I'm she, so they must agree that biology does not matter."  (simplified greatly, of course, but just to give the idea). So is it rude to not use prefered pronouns? Maybe. But what if you're asking someone to go against what they fundamentally believe to be true about science, biology, what it means to be a man/woman, etc.? Isn't it impolite to expect them to forgo all of that out of politeness on their part? Why must their beliefs be considered rude but not the other way around? And if it's, for example, a mother being asked to tell her child that she is he, or not she...and the mother believes this is not only wrong but harmful to their child? And that pronoun usage is seen as assent to a whole school of thought about gender and sex as a whole? 

That's my take on why it's not just about politness or kindness. And add in the fact of governments starting to compel speech and citing people for not using those pronouns? It's authoritarian and dangerous.

 

Ah, but, this was precisely the argument made by the anti-desegregation and the anti-miscegenation crowd.  It's a slippery slope, stand tall to what you know to be right.   They were wrong- I'm sure we all agree on that.  Are you wrong to refuse to use preferred pronouns? Maybe.  I think you're right that it's not about emotion, it's about principle.

Social pressure to compel people to behave in a certain way isn't always wrong.  It's not OK to use certain deeply repulsive sexist and racist  words, even where swearing is general accepted-- you will be frowned upon by many. I actually think we are all generally OK with that.  It's not socially acceptable to call kids retarded anymore, either, and that's not a terrible thing.    So I don't find the "no one should shame me into behaving a certain way" argument  100%  compelling.   It can go too far, it can be repressive, but that tactic isn't inherently bad. 

I do agree government should not compel speech to the degree of citing people for not using certain pronouns.  I could see a private company or even a college frowning on a person for that, but definitely not a court system.

 

[katilac]

1 hour ago, EmseB said:

Like here, the line is, "Why wouldn't you just be kind and use the word I'm asking you to use," and then later, "When everyone is acknowledging that I'm she, so they must agree that biology does not matter."  (simplified greatly, of course, but just to give the idea). So is it rude to not use prefered pronouns? Maybe. But what if you're asking someone to go against what they fundamentally believe to be true about science, biology, what it means to be a man/woman, etc.? 

 

I try to be kind and respectful to the person standing in front of me. If someone introduces themself as Dr. Smith, I refer to them as such even if I think they got their PhD from a subpar institution that is harming the state of advanced education. If someone introduces themself as Daniel with she pronouns, I refer to them as such regardless of my stance on gender politics and the possibility that doing so might be used against my preferred politics one day. That's just manners to me. I was raised to be polite to the devil himself. If Satan was a guest in my home as somebody's plus one, I would say Hello, Mr. Satan, would you care for a cold beverage? Assuming that the devil identifies as a mister. I just can't map out my personal interactions on a political chessboard. 

And the pronoun question? So easy in a personal setting. If you don't want to use their preferred pronoun, used their dig-dugging name. 

 

[EmseB]

4 minutes ago, katilac said:

 

I try to be kind and respectful to the person standing in front of me. If someone introduces themself as Dr. Smith, I refer to them as such even if I think they got their PhD from a subpar institution that is harming the state of advanced education. If someone introduces themself as Daniel with she pronouns, I refer to them as such regardless of my stance on gender politics and the possibility that doing so might be used against my preferred politics one day. That's just manners to me. I was raised to be polite to the devil himself. If Satan was a guest in my home as somebody's plus one, I would say Hello, Mr. Satan, would you care for a cold beverage? Assuming that the devil identifies as a mister. I just can't map out my personal interactions on a political chessboard. 

And the pronoun question? So easy in a personal setting. If you don't want to use their preferred pronoun, used their dig-dugging name. 

 

4

The more apt analogy is knowing that the person isn't a doctor and you are the pharmacist. They want to use that title to in order to be able to use a prescription pad and if you don't call them doctor you're rude and unkind at best, but more likely hateful and bigoted.

Or, more pertinently to body dysmorphia, it is more like someone who is anorexic telling you they need to lose just 10 more pounds and you agreeing with them in order to be polite. In that case, it is easy to see the harm one might do by deferring to agreement out of politeness. "I am so fat, either you agree or you hate me and everyone like me."

But if you're willing to be polite even to the point of deferring to evil (your example wrt Satan, not my opinion of trans people) then I think we're probably too far apart to understand each other here.
 

[poppy]

1 hour ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Ah, no, feeling bad has nothing to do with what I would do, nor does social pressure.  For that matter, I don't think it's what I was saying about the general response either.  

People don't like having their good will manipulated to ends they never did intend.  I am not going to agree to do something that is going to be used in a different way than is implied or intended.  A matter of etiquette does not mean either that there is some rights people have over pronouns, nor that I personally or anyone else really recognize gender as more fundamental than sex, or as some sort of essential ontological category, or that person with a penis is in fact a woman and always has been.

 When a polite usage is manipulated in that way, you will find the polite usage is likely to end.  Not because people feel badly, or are being emotionally resistant, but because they see they are being manipulated and stop allowing it.

 

Thank you for clarifying. I'm still not sure I get it -- I don't see manipulation so much as a pretty fundamental different worldview. And I haven't seen a decrease in willingness to be -- for lack of better term -- "pronoun flexible". But again, I am in the US, it may be different where you are.

[EmseB]

17 minutes ago, poppy said:

 

Ah, but, this was precisely the argument made by the anti-desegregation and the anti-miscegenation crowd.  It's a slippery slope, stand tall to what you know to be right.   They were wrong- I'm sure we all agree on that.  Are you wrong to refuse to use preferred pronouns? Maybe.  I think you're right that it's not about emotion, it's about principle.

Social pressure to compel people to behave in a certain way isn't always wrong.  It's not OK to use certain deeply repulsive sexist and racist  words, even where swearing is general accepted-- you will be frowned upon by many. I actually think we are all generally OK with that.  It's not socially acceptable to call kids retarded anymore, either, and that's not a terrible thing.    So I don't find the "no one should shame me into behaving a certain way" argument  100%  compelling.   It can go too far, it can be repressive, but that tactic isn't inherently bad. 

I do agree government should not compel speech to the degree of citing people for not using certain pronouns.  I could see a private company or even a college frowning on a person for that, but definitely not a court system.

 

I think this is an apples to oranges comparison. Race is a social construct. Biological sex is not.

And I agree, in some cases social pressure is good. In some cases it's not. We obviously disagree on whether it's okay or not in this case, maybe primarily because we disagree about what gender even means or is, but also if gender identity supplants biological sex when it comes to protected spaces and groups, and finally because I wonder if in the long term the idea of indulging body dysmorphia with pronoun use (especially for children and young people) is not harmful rather than a kindness. Interestingly, the newest research coming out showing any hint that the former might be true is considered anti-trans and thus bigoted and not worthy of consideration. This is the social pressure in academia currently. So all of us down at the laypeople level get kind of a feedback loop of what the "best" way to treat gender dysphoria is.

[Scarlett]

I don’t call clergy by names like ‘Father’.  It rarely is an issue, but it do s happen....

i can imagine the rare situation where I would be around someone who wanted to be called the opposite pronoun.....but. Could probably manage to just us their name.

[katilac]

25 minutes ago, EmseB said:

The more apt analogy 

 

I strongly disagree with both of your examples. I'll try to come back later and say why. 

And I vehemently disagree that offering the Prince of Hell a cold drink is deferring to evil (good think I'm not easily offended, lawd). You've never been polite to someone in your home even though you think they are racist? You've never been polite to someone in your home even though you think their politics are not only wrong-headed but actively harmful? What do you do, what would you do, if someone showed up with such a guest to a casual gathering at your home? Being rude to people is not going to change their mind. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

There's a joke in their somewhere about driving out thirst in the prince of darkness, but I don't have time to make it. 

 

 

[EmseB]

Just now, katilac said:

 

I strongly disagree with both of your examples. I'll try to come back later and say why. 

And I vehemently disagree that offering the Prince of Hell a cold drink is deferring to evil (good think I'm not easily offended, lawd). You've never been polite to someone in your home even though you think they are racist? You've never been polite to someone in your home even though you think their politics are not only wrong-headed but actively harmful? What do you do, what would you do, if someone showed up with such a guest to a casual gathering at your home? Being rude to people is not going to change their mind. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

There's a joke in their somewhere about driving out thirst in the prince of darkness, but I don't have time to make it. 

 

 

Your examples here are entirely different than how I took you to mean having a known evil person over for tea. Well, I wouldn't invite someone in wearing a klan robe, no. I would ask them to leave my home if they showed up for a party. That would probably be impolite. No, I wouldn't invite Hitler into my house as a plus one or pretend as if I didn't care about his personal politics. I wouldn't offer Satan a drink of water in order to feign politeness.  That is what I thought you were getting at. Not, would I be around my backwards great uncle who still thinks eugenics is a good idea. When he talks about it, I do address the fact that he's wrong, so that's also probably impolite. There's a huuuuge chasm there for me that makes a lot of difference, so I think I probably didn't understand what you were trying to say. Here's an example: Ellen Degeneres said she would under no circumstances have a certain major political figure on her show. She would not invite him as a guest because she finds him to be abhorrent. She said this out loud on national TV. Pretty impolite, but I think fair for her to say she will not abide certain things and cannot pretend to have a fun talk show with someone around she finds to be antithetical to her beliefs in things like love and light. So is she trying to driving out darkness with darkness?

None of this is really the same as someone asking to be called something that one is not and then insisting that the person unwilling to do so (for whatever reason) is simply being willfully rude or impolite, so it's probably just muddying the waters.

I don't think it is rude to tell someone if I think they are actively harming themselves. I think it is actually evil to allow someone to persist in self-destruction (whatever form you or I might think that takes, I'm not talking specifically about pronouns or trans people here). The extent to which I would do anything about this depends on the situation, how close I am to a person, what they are demanding from me, etc. To bring it back to the OP, my reaction would be different if a store clerk corrected me if I misidentified their gender, "Oops, I am so sorry. That is really embarrassing for me." or if it was my sister demanding that I not "see" my 2yo niece's biological sex and fall in line at family gatherings. <---a heart to heart talk about why I, in good faith could not do what she was asking me to do and it's not because I hate her or my niece would ensue.

But fundamentally, I don't associate politeness with love or light or fighting evil in any real sense. It's usually a social convention that aims to avoid offense among people who don't know each other well at all. If you're using it as a coercion tactic to make people accept certain things they find to be fundamentally unacceptable it's just authoritarian.

[moonflower]

It reminds me of the calls for civility I've been seeing recently from both the left and the right (more from the right, I think, but it goes back and forth). Civility is grand, it's good to be polite and not aggressive or unkind or overly direct or whatever.

But the people who are asking me to speak civilly with them are doing and advocating what I consider in some cases wholesale evil.  Like, you want me to be polite while you (insert thing you find absolutely reprehensible here  - abortion (for me), repeal of Roe (for others), etc.)

[Bluegoat]

1 hour ago, poppy said:

 

You must not be in the US, if you think policy is driven by this. We are very much on a "stripping away protections" whirlwind tour.

 

Policy is absolutely being given by identity politics in the US, it's a significant factor in the rise in white nationalism - an identity group opposed of people that previously didn't think of themselves in identarian terms.  The move to stripping away itself is a reaction.  It's quite different from a landscape where the focus is more firmly on universal vales and experiences.

[poppy]

1 hour ago, EmseB said:

I think this is an apples to oranges comparison. Race is a social construct. Biological sex is not.

And I agree, in some cases social pressure is good. In some cases it's not. We obviously disagree on whether it's okay or not in this case, maybe primarily because we disagree about what gender even means or is, but also if gender identity supplants biological sex when it comes to protected spaces and groups, and finally because I wonder if in the long term the idea of indulging body dysmorphia with pronoun use (especially for children and young people) is not harmful rather than a kindness. Interestingly, the newest research coming out showing any hint that the former might be true is considered anti-trans and thus bigoted and not worthy of consideration. This is the social pressure in academia currently. So all of us down at the laypeople level get kind of a feedback loop of what the "best" way to treat gender dysphoria is.

 

The idea of race as a social construct did not exist back when people were making arguments like " . But what if you're asking someone to go against what they fundamentally believe to be true about science, biology, what it means to be a man/woman, etc.? " about race.  The post-modernists pushing gender theory now were the same philosophical crew as is being torn apart here (Michel Foucault etc) for pushing that concept.  If identity is at least in part socially constructed, gender certainly may be one category, no?.

[Bluegoat]

1 hour ago, katilac said:

 

I try to be kind and respectful to the person standing in front of me. If someone introduces themself as Dr. Smith, I refer to them as such even if I think they got their PhD from a subpar institution that is harming the state of advanced education. If someone introduces themself as Daniel with she pronouns, I refer to them as such regardless of my stance on gender politics and the possibility that doing so might be used against my preferred politics one day. That's just manners to me. I was raised to be polite to the devil himself. If Satan was a guest in my home as somebody's plus one, I would say Hello, Mr. Satan, would you care for a cold beverage? Assuming that the devil identifies as a mister. I just can't map out my personal interactions on a political chessboard. 

And the pronoun question? So easy in a personal setting. If you don't want to use their preferred pronoun, used their dig-dugging name. 

 

 

Well, that is the traditional position, yes, that it is a question of manners, of etiquette.  Both of which are about being kind and also about minding your own business.  I've had people introduce themselves to me with names I knew were certainly false.  It wasn't useful or necessary for me to delve into that, so I didn't.  

But if this person had then gone on to say - look, this lady agrees that I am Mrs Smith, I want you people to give me access to Mrs Smith's bank account now please, that really changes the situation.  Or even if they decide to push the question of whether or not they are really Mrs Smith and I have to admit that no, they aren't, and am accused of some sort of rudeness or hypocrisy.

When that starts happening, the etiquette is likely to change pretty quickly.  And that is rather unfortunate because it affects the simpler and more innocent interactions as well.  

But I think that's where a lot of people are, and increasingly it's the direction I feel I might have to take, although I find it pretty viscerally uncomfortable.  But I am not going to basically sit out of what I think is a really important social issue that affects a lot of people, because of that.

[Bluegoat]

1 hour ago, poppy said:

 

Thank you for clarifying. I'm still not sure I get it -- I don't see manipulation so much as a pretty fundamental different worldview. And I haven't seen a decrease in willingness to be -- for lack of better term -- "pronoun flexible". But again, I am in the US, it may be different where you are.

 

I don't know if there is a decrease or not, but I think that may very well be the result in the end.  I do think the US as a whole is actually behind some other countries on how far this has gone into the public consciousness.  The UK seems farthest along, maybe because of the GRA and also some other issues that have brought the implications of these changes to the public attention.  Canada has just drunk the kool-aid.  In the US it's become sucked into the Trump/anti-Trump split with a lot of noise but without a lot of real examination.

[LMD]

3 hours ago, EmseB said:

Well, yes, I doubt I could distill intersectionality down to two lines on a message board, but in any case, a direct result of intersectionality and its ideas has been that people that fall on certain axes are allowed to speak about such things, define terms, etc., and others are not. The axes determine who has the authority to speak about issues related to that group. If someone is more marginalized or victimized, they are allowed to speak on topics that others are not, or those others must listen and heed what more marginalized persons are saying.

Which is really what all of this is coming down to. Women are a marginalized group, but trans women are more marginalized, so women, regardless of their views on sex or gender, must acquiesce to what trans women say about themselves in defining themselves as women, biologically and in all other ways. It is a philosophy and set of standards that seems to be eating its own because in the end everyone must strive to be more and more marginalized than other groups in order to have any kind of authority on a subject or to have the power to be listened to in a meaningful way.

 

Not only what they say about themselves, but what they say about the world, society, women...

Case in point - UK labour politicians:

 

[Bluegoat]

25 minutes ago, poppy said:

 

The idea of race as a social construct did not exist back when people were making arguments like " . But what if you're asking someone to go against what they fundamentally believe to be true about science, biology, what it means to be a man/woman, etc.? " about race.  The post-modernists pushing gender theory now were the same philosophical crew as is being torn apart here (Michel Foucault etc) for pushing that concept.  If identity is at least in part socially constructed, gender certainly may be one category, no?.

 

Well, it did I think but was still more in the sciences rather than something the general public had knowledge about.  Race wasn't deconstructed by postmodernists, it was a scientific project to find a scientific basis for race.  Which they did not find.

That something is a social construct doesn't mean that it isn't real, or even based on more objective elements in some way.  Race obviously relates to ethnic background, for example.  But it also hold together a lot of other things.  As a concept, it's not scientifically valid in the way people who believed in classic eugenics, for example, thought. (In some ways that isn't really the point of anti-racism, even if it was valid, that doesn't mean that those racial theories were true or moral.) 

Gender by definition is socially constructed, at least until recently it was, but it was also understood to be a concept intrinsically related to sex.  THat's why it was developed as a concept, to describe how sex becomes encultured.  Sex however, is absolutely not constructed in the same way, it describes a material reality in as basic a way as scientific descriptions can.  In the race analogy, it's somewhat equivalent to the genetic element of ethnicity, although even more basic.

[poppy]

7 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Well, it did I think but was still more in the sciences rather than something the general public had knowledge about.  Race wasn't deconstructed by postmodernists, it was a scientific project to find a scientific basis for race.  Which they did not find.

That something is a social construct doesn't mean that it isn't real, or even based on more objective elements in some way.  Race obviously relates to ethnic background, for example.  But it also hold together a lot of other things.  As a concept, it's not scientifically valid in the way people who believed in classic eugenics, for example, thought. (In some ways that isn't really the point of anti-racism, even if it was valid, that doesn't mean that those racial theories were true or moral.) 

Gender by definition is socially constructed, at least until recently it was, but it was also understood to be a concept intrinsically related to sex.  THat's why it was developed as a concept, to describe how sex becomes encultured.  Sex however, is absolutely not constructed in the same way, it describes a material reality in as basic a way as scientific descriptions can.  In the race analogy, it's somewhat equivalent to the genetic element of ethnicity, although even more basic.

 

I wholeheartedly disagree that science is what got us to where we are in terms of race.  It was blood, sweat and tears of many activists.  It was an identity group self-advocating, finding allies, courting public opinion, fighting on multiple legal fronts, strategizing.   Not  a measured and fair scientific process. 

[poppy]

50 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Policy is absolutely being given by identity politics in the US, it's a significant factor in the rise in white nationalism - an identity group opposed of people that previously didn't think of themselves in identarian terms.  The move to stripping away itself is a reaction.  It's quite different from a landscape where the focus is more firmly on universal vales and experiences.

 

Again I want to bring up that identarian terms has made a great deal of positive progress in the US - see my previous post.

 "Universal values" are a social construct, IMO. 

[SKL]

1 hour ago, moonflower said:

It reminds me of the calls for civility I've been seeing recently from both the left and the right (more from the right, I think, but it goes back and forth). Civility is grand, it's good to be polite and not aggressive or unkind or overly direct or whatever.

But the people who are asking me to speak civilly with them are doing and advocating what I consider in some cases wholesale evil.  Like, you want me to be polite while you (insert thing you find absolutely reprehensible here  - abortion (for me), repeal of Roe (for others), etc.)

Yeah, this is necessary to having an actual conversation, and has always been managed by at least some people who care enough to try.

I don't understand the argument that we simply cannot speak to people who disagree with us, regardless of the topic.

[SKL]

20 minutes ago, LMD said:

 

Not only what they say about themselves, but what they say about the world, society, women...

Case in point - UK labour politicians:

 

fi

Interesting.  I recall 3 decades ago when I realized that NOW would never speak to me because its main foci were abortion rights and gay rights.  The challenges faced by the vast majority of women are not remotely related to abortion or homosexuality.  I took issue with the name "National Organization for Women" because it wasn't "for" most women at all.

So in your quote, they are saying a person born male who identifies as a woman is a better speaker for women's concerns than a person born female who identifies as a woman?  And I suppose that if I disagree, I'm a deplorable hater.  Oh well.

[LMD]

Yeah that's what they're saying. That there's 'very few issues' around having a female body. Hardly worth mentioning really. Especially when you're wanting to fill a Women's Officer role...

[Bluegoat]

17 minutes ago, poppy said:

 

I wholeheartedly disagree that science is what got us to where we are in terms of race.  It was blood, sweat and tears of many activists.  It was an identity group self-advocating, finding allies, courting public opinion, fighting on multiple legal fronts, strategizing.   Not  a measured and fair scientific process. 

 

You are changing the language. In terms of concluding that race is a social construct rather than a robust material category, that was a scientific project.  As far as people knew otherwise, including activists, it could have been.  

 

[Bluegoat]

20 minutes ago, poppy said:

 

Again I want to bring up that identarian terms has made a great deal of positive progress in the US - see my previous post.

 "Universal values" are a social construct, IMO. 

 

That's pretty much a death toll for any kind of society then, if we can't even talk about some kind of universal value, like justice regardless of race or ethnicity.  Or if it's simply a constructed idea (very Nietzchean) what it means is that no one can actually make a moral argument for their values, it's simply a matter of who can better assert their will.  The strong are always the winners,.

It's quite possible to talk about sub-groups and still have a universal vision of justice or love.  All kinds of sub-groups do in fact exist.  When they become the focus of policy initiatives though, you no longer have a basis for a society, you have race and class and gender and religious wars, wether figuratively as each jockeys for position, or perhaps quite literally.  

[moonflower]

1 minute ago, StellaM said:

If gender theory is evidence based, my feeling is that it can be argued on its own merits without co-opting the Civil rights movement.

 

 

 

 

Yes, I would (always) prefer to see things argued on their own merit.  

[Bluegoat]

16 minutes ago, SKL said:

Interesting.  I recall 3 decades ago when I realized that NOW would never speak to me because its main foci were abortion rights and gay rights.  The challenges faced by the vast majority of women are not remotely related to abortion or homosexuality.  I took issue with the name "National Organization for Women" because it wasn't "for" most women at all.

So in your quote, they are saying a person born male who identifies as a woman is a better speaker for women's concerns than a person born female who identifies as a woman?  And I suppose that if I disagree, I'm a deplorable hater.  Oh well.

 

Yes, and the reasoning is interesting - it is because they think most problems or issues relating specifically to women have nothing to do with their reproductive role.

Now - women's officers in the Labour party were instituted because they were having a hard time getting women candidates to run.  They wanted to run women, but they just weren't offering themselves for the job.  Why - well probably a few reasons, but a huge one is that the lifestyle of politics, like a lot of high-stress long hours jobs, is more difficult for people who are mothers to work in.  The idea was that having women's officers could help the party find ways to work around these different problems, and it was fairly effective in increasing the number of women running.

And this constituency in particular is working class with a lot of problems with women in domestic abuse situations, prostitution, drugs.

It is really hard to conceive of how blinkered people have to be to imagine that reproductive organs are only a minor part of women's policy issues. 

[Bluegoat]

5 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

My experience is that it is always argued on either the race analogy, which is a pretty poor one (see Bluegoat's posts) or on comparisons to homophobia. 

 

They kind of learned from the gay rights movement there, which inevitably seemed to compare anyone who disputed their position by comparing them to racists.  But it's not particularly clear that having same sex partners is very similar kind of thing to being of a particular socio-ethnic background.

[Ravin]

On 10/25/2018 at 1:51 PM, Janie Grace said:

Do you know anyone raising a child without assigning it a gender? I have a sibling who is doing this. Sibling is gay and lives in a very progressive part of the country. The child has female genitalia but my sibling and partner gave the child a name that could be either gender. They dress the child so that you wouldn't know she's a girl and keep her hair very short. They have been referring to the kid as "she" and "her" but suddenly have decided to use "they" (child just turned 3). The family is coming to visit soon and I'm sure we are all going to forget and offend them by using "she" because that's what we have been doing for 3 years. But we will try our best.

I'm trying to state this all as impassively as I can because I want to be sensitive. But I am really struggling. I agree that we shouldn't push kids into gender stereotypes, that there are lots of ways to be a boy or a girl, and that if a child persistently experiences being in the wrong body, I agree with lovingly facilitating transition. But to not even allow a child a pronoun like everyone else? This kid is in a preschool of boys and girls and isn't allowed to be either? How is that good? (Although given the demographic, maybe there are other "they"s.) My sibling thinks that by age 4 or 5, the child will tell the parents what gender they are. Can a young child really just "pick"? This feels like a weird social experiment. 

I am sorry if this offends you. I am really just wrestling through this. I love my niece more that I can say (I guess I am supposed to use "nibling" now, not niece) and I just fear for what the fallout of this will be. I'm frustrated with what feels like pushing extreme beliefs on a child, and I am worried that the kid will grow up confused and isolated. ?

ETA: I am evaluating my feelings more and I think part of my struggle is sadness at how this makes us feel all the more divergent in our thinking/choices/world views. I love this sibling so much but each year that goes by makes me feel like we are from different planets. And yet we get closer in some ways. I guess I'm afraid this "they not she" thing will drive a wedge because I won't remember and don't understand. Of course I would never argue it with my sibling; their family, their rules. It just makes me sad the way that seeing extreme legalism (girls may not go to college) on the other side of the family does. But I know we are all trying our best... 

 

Honestly, I would ask your sibling's child, young as they are, what pronouns they prefer to use. If the kid says "she/her/I'm a girl" then go with that. If the kid says "I don't care" then stop worrying about it and call the kid whatever seems right in the moment. If the kid says "they/them" then go with that. If they change their minds, go with the flow as best you can.

Yes, a young child really can just pick. Some transgender children speak up that young. Whatever your sibling may try to do to control the environment, that kid is constantly being bombarded with messages about gender--from TV, from books, from peers unless they are completely isolated in a gender-neutral social bubble. 99% of the time, they're going to pick the gender that corresponds to their biological sex.

When I was a new parent, I tried to steer away from too much hyper-gendered stuff for DD, but by the time she was 3.5, it was PINK PINK GIRL PINK PRINCESS SPARKLE just about nonstop. She doesn't get it from me! ?

[poppy]

51 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

That's pretty much a death toll for any kind of society then, if we can't even talk about some kind of universal value, like justice regardless of race or ethnicity.  Or if it's simply a constructed idea (very Nietzchean) what it means is that no one can actually make a moral argument for their values, it's simply a matter of who can better assert their will.  The strong are always the winners,.

It's quite possible to talk about sub-groups and still have a universal vision of justice or love.  All kinds of sub-groups do in fact exist.  When they become the focus of policy initiatives though, you no longer have a basis for a society, you have race and class and gender and religious wars, wether figuratively as each jockeys for position, or perhaps quite literally.  

 

No, it's not the death toll at all, we have a delightful society. 

I was replying to your claim: " Policy is absolutely being given by identity politics in the US, it's a significant factor in the rise in white nationalism - an identity group opposed of people that previously didn't think of themselves in identarian terms.  The move to stripping away itself is a reaction.  It's quite different from a landscape where the focus is more firmly on universal vales and experiences.' 

The ONLY way things change is when a small group of people  -- and most definitely not the strongest or richest -- convince others.  There is no world where people universally  decide to expand rights without the work on the ground from activists.  For example: expanding suffrage to women was identity politics at work. At least in the US. As I've admitted, I am not as familiar with history in other parts of the world.

[maize]

26 minutes ago, Ravin said:

When I was a new parent, I tried to steer away from too much hyper-gendered stuff for DD, but by the time she was 3.5, it was PINK PINK GIRL PINK PRINCESS SPARKLE just about nonstop. She doesn't get it from me! ?

It's funny isn't it; my oldest was a lot like me--I remember taking her to a birthday party at about age 3 and all the little girls were dressing up as princesses; my dd picked out the firefighter outfit for herself.

My second girl was sparkly princess all the way at that age ?

[poppy]

57 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

My experience is that genderist ideology is always argued on either the race analogy, which is a pretty poor one (see Bluegoat's posts) or on comparisons to homophobia. Or not argued at all, but just reliant on appeals to kindness.

I think the trouble for proponents is that there isn't a lot of hard evidence. And when evidence is presented, it's often on the basis of weak and unreplicated science, or on the basis of asserted yet unproven theory.

 

 

 

Can you untangle this for me?
Science says race doesnt' exist; it's just a social construct.  Which does exist..  But gender is a social construct too.  But there is not hard evidence that it exists?
What "hard evidence" are you seeking to confirm the existence of an social construct? 

[poppy]

2 minutes ago, OKBud said:

 

No it wasn't. Women we're not denied the vote because they *identified* as female. It's not like you could stroll up to the poll wearing britches and be like, "it's ok y'all. I identify as male." And they'd let you vote. Get real. 

 

Women gained the vote because the they banded together and advocated for their group. That is the actual definition of identity politics.

[poppy]

2 minutes ago, OKBud said:

Oh, and what constitutes a woman? That would have needed to band together to advocate for themselves? When men(?) Wouldn't let them vote since the beginning of America?

 

I'm super confused.  What is your definition of identity politics? Only applies to identities that do not exist?

Loads of people couldn't vote in the beginning of America.  Less than 10% of the population, in the beginning.

[Bluegoat]

20 minutes ago, poppy said:

 

No, it's not the death toll at all, we have a delightful society. 

I was replying to your claim: " Policy is absolutely being given by identity politics in the US, it's a significant factor in the rise in white nationalism - an identity group opposed of people that previously didn't think of themselves in identarian terms.  The move to stripping away itself is a reaction.  It's quite different from a landscape where the focus is more firmly on universal vales and experiences.' 

The ONLY way things change is when a small group of people  -- and most definitely not the strongest or richest -- convince others.  There is no world where people universally  decide to expand rights without the work on the ground from activists.  For example: expanding suffrage to women was identity politics at work. At least in the US. As I've admitted, I am not as familiar with history in other parts of the world.

 

Te suffragettes made their argument on the basis of universal values, and humanity as a universal category, as did the civil rights movement.  This is a focus that doesn't obliterate smaller groups of similar people or people with related interests, but it does give them value with regard to their relationship to the universal, and so in a sense subsumes them.   There's also a relation to how our brain works - we can't help but see and evaluate, enumerate categories we've been trained to see - it's how the brain works.   What this means is that as long as we are trained to notice an identity, it is at risk to become a negative focus when conditions are right.  

In particular with the increased emphasis on identity over the last 20 years, you can see that groups which previously had not thought of themselves in those terms, have beginning to.  People who thought of themselves as "just regular people" were moved to action when it looked like others were being barred from that because they had a particular group membership.  But increasingly even those people are thinking of themselves in terms of their own identity markers, and that creates a really different atmosphere. Especially when identity politics are pretty clearly being used as a way for the political elite to continue to oppress them economically.   

As far as it not being a death toll - without a concept of universal values and an ontological, universal basis for human value, there is no way to have a society that has these "delightful" characteristics you want.  It doesn't even have to be that people agree about them all - but if people hdo not believe that there is such a thing as justice, what does that society look like?  It certainly is not going to be one that will argue for expanding rights.  Why would it?

[Bluegoat]

22 minutes ago, poppy said:

 

I'm super confused.  What is your definition of identity politics? Only applies to identities that do not exist?

Loads of people couldn't vote in the beginning of America.  Less than 10% of the population, in the beginning.

 

I think she is asking you what that particular group had in common, and how/why it meant they were unable to vote.

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Interesting.  I recall 3 decades ago when I realized that NOW would never speak to me because its main foci were abortion rights and gay rights.  The challenges faced by the vast majority of women are not remotely related to abortion or homosexuality.  I took issue with the name "National Organization for Women" because it wasn't "for" most women at all.

So in your quote, they are saying a person born male who identifies as a woman is a better speaker for women's concerns than a person born female who identifies as a woman?  And I suppose that if I disagree, I'm a deplorable hater.  Oh well.

 

Right?  Because obviously the best way to be a woman is to have or have had a penis, aka be or have been a man.

And if we say a hearty hell no to what should be obvious irrationality that a man can explain the female identity or experience better than a woman? Oh we must be haters.

Yes, it should be insulting to every woman to see a man win woman of the year. And if we are going to compare it to racism - fine.  It's not one bit different than a white guy winning black man of the year by showing up in black face.  Even if he swears he is a black man in a white man's body, even if he had really great cosmetic surgery, it still wouldn't be considered anything but insulting.  (Tho there's a comedian who points out in his skit that this would be a true test of insanity bc no one in their right mind would choose to be a black man these days.)

But women? Pfft.  It's so unladylike to point out these things.

 

 

 

[poppy]

36 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Te suffragettes made their argument on the basis of universal values, and humanity as a universal category, as did the civil rights movement.  This is a focus that doesn't obliterate smaller groups of similar people or people with related interests, but it does give them value with regard to their relationship to the universal, and so in a sense subsumes them.   There's also a relation to how our brain works - we can't help but see and evaluate, enumerate categories we've been trained to see - it's how the brain works.   What this means is that as long as we are trained to notice an identity, it is at risk to become a negative focus when conditions are right.  

In particular with the increased emphasis on identity over the last 20 years, you can see that groups which previously had not thought of themselves in those terms, have beginning to.  People who thought of themselves as "just regular people" were moved to action when it looked like others were being barred from that because they had a particular group membership.  But increasingly even those people are thinking of themselves in terms of their own identity markers, and that creates a really different atmosphere. Especially when identity politics are pretty clearly being used as a way for the political elite to continue to oppress them economically.   

As far as it not being a death toll - without a concept of universal values and an ontological, universal basis for human value, there is no way to have a society that has these "delightful" characteristics you want.  It doesn't even have to be that people agree about them all - but if people hdo not believe that there is such a thing as justice, what does that society look like?  It certainly is not going to be one that will argue for expanding rights.  Why would it?

 

What is it you think activitist today are working towards  People fighting white supremacy are not fighting for BLACK supremacy. They are fighting for a better world for all. 
For inclusion.  No one is obliterated in a just world.