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Non-gendered kids


Janie Grace
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1 hour ago, Farrar said:

Um, I'm fine with rapists or serial killers or embezzlers or really any other criminals owning their pronouns too. Criminals have certain rights. The right to self-determine is one of them (no, this does not mean they should necessarily be housed with a general female population in prison though...). It's not about being courteous to criminals to allow them to keep their names and identities. Those are human rights that everyone has. Rape should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible no matter the perpetrator. This whole argument is just completely bizarre to me. Like, in a few isolated incidents trans women have raped women so therefore every single person on earth shouldn't have control over their pronouns? The logical fail here is so huge.

Women have fought for centuries to have the right to our own names and identities. We have had to fight to not have our very titles be tied to our marriage status. To not have to keep our names if we don't choose. To have the right to self-identify in all kinds of ways. Extending this right further empowers women. 

Is telling me not to refer to my niece as she empowering to me?

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3 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

 

And is it actually empowering to the niece herself ? The three year old niece ? Is she really empowered by being called 'they' ? 

 

 

Seems the only empowered people in this scenario are the parents...but what are they taking away from others in order to assert their power?

I do assume they are well intentioned. Good intentions can be misguided however...

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2 minutes ago, texasmom33 said:

I've experienced it in academic circles- to make a long story short, a great part of my career was dedicated to HIV and infectious disease which is inherently tied to sexuality and sexual behaviors, which is why I am as familiar with certain communities as I am. I don't have the personal, familial ties that many on this thread do.  I left the field, but of course you still keep up.  Or rather, I did keep up. And I'll be honest, over the last several years I've left those circles, because there truly is no winning. And by winning, I should clarify- I don't mean getting my view accepted as correct. I mean being able to offer any dissenting discourse what so ever without being labeled as a bigot, which is used to simply shut anyone up who isn't catering to the most vocal and press covered voice de jour. I'm done. Which is why I hesitated to even post on this thread in the first place. I think people who aren't actively involved in the LGBT political circles aren't aware of the splintering of factions that is going on there. A very, very small minority is driving all of the conversation. And because the squeaky wheel gets the grease, the press coverage, and also the controversial is always the most favored to be propelled by certain media players- it's being presumed as the message of the whole, which is sad because they're not some monolithic group and the vast majority don't have an "agenda". But I feel like LGBT people get forced into this sort of lock step system where it's assumed it is all just one agenda and it's so not. 

But I digress. To get back to your question- I do not encounter this in my everyday life for the most part, as far as myself as an adult. However I am hearing conversations like this pop up with my oldest dd's public school friends, and with other college age relatives at an alarming rate. It's a huge thing with teens and young adults I think. I think social media is driving a ton of it, and now it's become an endless loop that is making teens focus to an unhealthy level on sexuality and so many facets around it. And I don't mean they're having sex type of focusing. At this point I think it would honestly be great if they had more sex and obsessed about all of the theory around it less. Now everything is about questions and labels. You have to have a label. Or well labels, and if you don't there is something wrong with you. They've turned it into an obsessive, theorizing loop. There is also a huge suicide spike at the local public high schools, and I do think a ton of this plays in. So yes, for me the answer is all of the above. You can fall down a Gender Theory hole on one way and spend months reading journal articles, or you can just spend a few hours on Reddit, 4Chan, or Tumblr reading what the teens are talking about and you'll probably fall deeper into that rabbit hole than you ever dreamed. 

 

Ah, yes, the intersection of politics and academia is enough to drive anyone around the bend. It's extremely frustrating to know that you are correct about the squeaky (and splashy) wheel getting the grease, when that those wheels often are not representing the opinions or desires of most of the community. 

I do encounter it in my daily life quite a bit with teens and young adults in a particular social circle. I agree that there can be too much focus on it, but I'm wondering it that might be an inevitable part of the pendulum swing? I do think it's too simplistic to say that it's trendy (I don't think you're saying that, just riffing now). It's trendy in the sense of being on everyone's mind, yes, but the majority of kids who identify as trans or nonbinary still go to hell and back in high school. Not just getting picked on or called names, but getting beat up and worse. They, as individuals, are not doing it to be trendy. 

To me, it comes down to respecting the person right in front of me. I will call you by whatever names and pronouns you request. I'll try hard not to question or belittle your journey. I do think we should separate the political from the personal to a large degree - I can certainly oppose a political movement to use only they pronouns on, say, government documents, while still being fine with using they with an individual at their request. I'm sure there are extremists pushing for dangerous and nonsensical things in almost every aspect of life. I don't think it's fair to project the lunacy of extremists onto people who haven't given me any reason to think they are anything other than a person living their life the way they see fit. <<< (this is not in response to your post)

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Farrar, I agree with you that criminals are human and should be treated humanely - as an act of our humanity if not theirs.

Now, in the case of a person who has used their male sex characteristics to commit a sexual assault, I have real trouble with the idea that they can rewrite the victim's traumatic experience and societal perception of a male perpetrator. The human right to identity (which human right are you looking at? I don't see it under the UDHR) does not override the freedom of conscience, belief and expression. That is where the compelled speech idea comes in. There has already been an instance in the UK where a woman who was assaulted by a transwoman (had not legally transitioned so was still technically as well as physically male) was instructed by a judge to call their attacker 'she' whilst giving testimony under oath. That is compelled speech. That disturbs me. 

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43 minutes ago, goldberry said:

Been mulling over the ownership of pronouns, and a brief observation, although I'm not quite sure how it fits it.  For example, if we had never met "Mary", we would refer to Mary as "her or she" based on her name.  If we then saw a person Mary who presented as a women, we would still call Mary "her or she".  Mary could secretly have a penis. We wouldn't think to ask that question. Biological sex would never enter the equation.  We would accept the way Mary identified and presented.  So isn't Mary in effect defining her own pronoun?  Both by name and presentation?

There would only be a question really if we knew Mary previously and knew Mary previously identified as a male and possessed a penis.  Or if Mary didn't pass very well and had some male characteristics that made us wonder about actual biological sex. But it still seems like *in general* people do define their own pronouns, both by names, by self-identification, and by presentation.  That's why it's so confusing when someone is more ambiguous. I would find it easier to refer to an ambiguous person as "they" than to ask directly, as I would find that more awkward and embarrassing.  And I am someone who NEVER uses they in singular when I can avoid it.  It grammatically bugs me.

 

No, I would not say that in that case she is defining her own pronoun.  It's still a collective pronoun, that's being applied to her because the person saying it believes she is in fact female.  You could perhaps say Mary is deliberately creating that impression, but she's not created that use.  

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18 minutes ago, maize said:

Is telling me not to refer to my niece as she empowering to me?

 

Your sibling does not have a duty to empower you. 

4 minutes ago, maize said:

Seems the only empowered people in this scenario are the parents...but what are they taking away from others in order to assert their power?

I do assume they are well intentioned. Good intentions can be misguided however...

 

Parents are always the ones empowered where their children are concerned. You are just as empowered where your own children are concerned. In America, parents have tremendous power over their minor children. She vs they is not a parental power that particularly concerns me, particularly in the situation you have described (progressive area, loving parents). 

Of course good intentions can be misguided. There is no parent alive that has not screwed up with the best of intentions. The only way to avoid that is to not have kids. This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin may not be great literature, but it certainly has a point (extra spaces below in case anyone wants to avoid bad language).

 

 

 

 

 

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

They f*ck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were f*cked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

 

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40 minutes ago, texasmom33 said:

I'm going to add one more thing to what I was trying to get at above, and I am not trying to derail the OP's thread. But I do feel like SO much of this falls on girls. And they are just girls. Even if they're in their 20's. They are just figuring things out and all of a sudden they are having this massive pressure dropped onto them by these faceless people who drop all of these theories down from above and see what sticks. Stella I think mentioned earlier that bisexual girls actually have a huge suicide rate. That does not surprise me in the slightest. I think girls are damned if they do, damned if they don't- much like at any other point in history. We aren't allowed to have anything that's "ours" at this point. And it's sad. 

Yep. Which is why many of us are concerned about things like 4000% increase in referrals to gender clinics - with the biggest spike being dysphoric girls. Which is why we'd like to be really clear and  careful about how gender identity is defined, pathologised & portrayed. Because playing at switching 'gender' (again, please define gender) is not necessarily harmless.

Eta- reading detransitioners stories is why I keep persisting with these questions. They are important.

"no one wanted to get into the dirt with me and parse what gender actually is. they took my word for it, as though i, a teenager, could somehow be an expert on both gender and self. hah!"

 http://redressalert.tumblr.com

 

Edited by LMD
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9 minutes ago, LMD said:

Farrar, I agree with you that criminals are human and should be treated humanely - as an act of our humanity if not theirs.

Now, in the case of a person who has used their male sex characteristics to commit a sexual assault, I have real trouble with the idea that they can rewrite the victim's traumatic experience and societal perception of a male perpetrator. The human right to identity (which human right are you looking at? I don't see it under the UDHR) does not override the freedom of conscience, belief and expression. That is where the compelled speech idea comes in. There has already been an instance in the UK where a woman who was assaulted by a transwoman (had not legally transitioned so was still technically as well as physically male) was instructed by a judge to call their attacker 'she' whilst giving testimony under oath. That is compelled speech. That disturbs me. 

 

It's kind of worrying from the perspective of keeping statistics as well.

Trans issues are really huge in the health sector here now and one of the things has been to start allowing self-identity of gender - but of course for health reasons they still want to know the actual sex of people.  It's a bit weird though because they still only have binary choices for gender and they need to be permanent - I have a few family members involved in that sector at a high level and asked them about that  - they didn't seem to be aware that in gender theory there are other gender identities than male and female - and they have all recently been to multiple conferences on this stuff.  They are designing whole information systems when there are several competing, non-compatible theories and they are changing fast - it seems very odd.  If it really comes down to total individualization, I think the only way to do it would be to attach it to names.  And then, it's only social, there is no medical stuff attached to that.

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2 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

It's kind of worrying from the perspective of keeping statistics as well.

Trans issues are really huge in the health sector here now and one of the things has been to start allowing self-identity of gender - but of course for health reasons they still want to know the actual sex of people.  It's a bit weird though because they still only have binary choices for gender and they need to be permanent - I have a few family members involved in that sector at a high level and asked them about that  - they didn't seem to be aware that in gender theory there are other gender identities than male and female - and they have all recently been to multiple conferences on this stuff.  They are designing whole information systems when there are several competing, non-compatible theories and they are changing fast - it seems very odd.  If it really comes down to total individualization, I think the only way to do it would be to attach it to names.  And then, it's only social, there is no medical stuff attached to that.

Which is also confusing if we're told that gender identity is different to and separate from sex. So why is gender identity necessary at all in the health sector or statistics relating to the sexes (obviously except for during treatment for sex/body dysphoria)? 

I'm all for people presenting/expressing how they prefer. I'm all for dysphoric people accessing the medical help they need to thrive.

I'm not for conflating gender identity and sex, I'm not for just collapsing everything complicated into gender identity is the preeminent feature in humans. I'd love to be persuaded otherwise, I'd love to find none of this concerning.

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1 minute ago, LMD said:

Which is also confusing if we're told that gender identity is different to and separate from sex. So why is gender identity necessary at all in the health sector or statistics relating to the sexes (obviously except for during treatment for sex/body dysphoria)? 

I'm all for people presenting/expressing how they prefer. I'm all for dysphoric people accessing the medical help they need to thrive.

I'm not for conflating gender identity and sex, I'm not for just collapsing everything complicated into gender identity is the preeminent feature in humans. I'd love to be persuaded otherwise, I'd love to find none of this concerning.

 

I have really struggled to find readable resources on identity that look at how it is formed in terms of various types of identity.  I mean, there are a lot of identities that people feel deeply - sexual, racial, national or ethnic, and even some that are more obviously culture-based only - and yet we know in other places and times people have not necessarily had these as points of identity.  It's not that they were biologically different, right?  But clearly to me people can deeply feel an identity that has origins other than some biological essentialist essence.

Most of what I've found about this on the scientific side or on the philosophical side though is very obscure or technical, and doesn't seem to address quite what I am interested in.

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This whole subject....wow. I raised my son to like what he liked.....he loved baby dolls and the color pink.  He carried a baby doll around at age 5......Ex was sure I was warping him somehow.  Oh and then we went through a stage at around age 5 of walking around on all 4s, barking and panting and telling us he was a puppy.  Xh was horrified.......ds also told me he wished he was a girl.to which I replied, hmm...really....well sorry  God made you a boy.   Aren’t these normal stages for the majority of kids? Yes, I understand that there are a small % who have a very rare and serious disorder.....my heart breaks for these families.....and I gotta say I have no clue how I would react.  But the fact is in most cases boys are boys and girls are girls and we raise our kids in line with our values, not according to the latest trends or some rare possibility. 

pretending  to a 3year  old that she has no gender...or sex...that is truly bizarre.....akin to abuse of some kind in my mind.  

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2 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

 pretending  to a 3year  old that she has no gender...or sex...that is truly bizarre.....akin to abuse of some kind in my mind.  

 

This is a very long thread, but I only recall them addressing gender, not sex. And they aren't saying she doesn't have gender, they are saying they will let her decide, and expect her to do so in a fairly short amount of time. Which still sounds pretty out there to many of us, but remember that we have absolutely no idea if there are specific reasons they are doing this. For all we know, the child has said or done certain things that are driving the decision, they are acting under the advice of an excellent therapist, and they are giving out information on a need-to-know basis.

If this is so, and the child winds up choosing the expected gender and pronouns, this will likely be put down to a whim of the parents and the child will just move on without people asking them a million questions for the next ten years. Protecting the privacy of your child in delicate matters is excellent parenting.  

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Going all the way back to the OP, I think it is strange that so many people are apparently accepting the idea that being born biologically female has no implications other than what one's sex organs look like.  I'm raising two females, currently in puberty, and I don't believe for one minute that their behavior, interests, moods, etc. are not largely a result of their sex.  Despite calling them "girls" all their lives, I never told them they had to play with dolls instead of trucks etc.  They always had and played with the whole spectrum of toys, books, and friends.  They didn't watch sexist TV etc.  Turns out one of them liked dolls, books, and engineering.  The other liked bears, sports, and makeup.  But have we forgotten about hormones?  Thanks to female hormones, my kids engage in girl drama, crush on boys, and are developing maternal instincts.  I could have banned dolls, pink, and princess stories and named my kids John, and they would still have girl drama.

It seems to me that you don't have to change basic language or censor culture in order to teach girls (and boys) that they don't have to be a stereotype.  You can simply show them the truth.  For example, I used to take my kids to female doctors so they wouldn't think doctor = male.  You can let them choose from a variety of toys - and I don't think it's logical to steer them away from princesses any more than superheroes.  Will some kids still feel outside the norm, well yes, that is always going to be true.  Changing a pronoun isn't going to prevent that.

Unless the whole society calls all girls and boys "they," singling one kid out for an unconventional pronoun will make the child feel "other" regardless of whether he/she eventually joins the tiny % of people who are non-cis.  And no, I do not believe the removal of sex-based pronouns will fix the fact that transgender people are going to feel "other."

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10 hours ago, maize said:

Seems the only empowered people in this scenario are the parents...but what are they taking away from others in order to assert their power?

I do assume they are well intentioned. Good intentions can be misguided however...

Someone is always going to be on the losing end of this within families, though.

I have two siblings who are not okay with my son being transgender. For the past 2.5 years they have chosen to mostly use his old name and gender when talking and referring to him. We decided to stuff our own feelings for those two years in hopes that as time went by things might change. We made that decision because we love them and would like a relationship with them. Now we are entering year three and we can't just stuff our feelings anymore because it is very disrespectful to my son and it is difficult for all of us to have to hear his old name and gender come out of their mouths when they visit. We have now decided the relationship with them isn't worth it anymore. We aren't forcing them to do anything they don't want but we can no longer be forced to endure something we don't want as well. It's painful for everyone but the person it affects the most is ds and he will win out with me over my siblings every time.

Edited by Joker
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8 minutes ago, Joker said:

Someone is always going to be on the losing end of this within families, though.

I have two siblings who are not okay with my son being transgender. For the past 2.5 years they have chosen to mostly use his old name and gender when talking and referring to him. We decided to stuff our own feelings for those two years in hopes that as time went by things might change. We made that decision because we love them and would like a relationship with them. Now we are entering year three and we can't just stuff our feelings anymore because it is very disrespectful to my son and it is difficult or all of us to have to hear his old name and gender come out of their mouths when they visit. We have now decided the relationship with them isn't worth it anymore. We aren't forcing them to do anything they don't want but we can no longer be forced to endure something we don't want as well. It's painful for everyone but the person it affects the most is ds and he will win out with me over my siblings every time.

Do you feel like OP's family situation is comparable to yours?

You've shared enough of your son's struggles here for me to know the situation has been very serious.

It seems to me that people who experience serious gender/sex dysphoria that only transition will allow them to cope with would themselves be concerned about people muddying the waters with the assumption that young children in general would be better off ungendered until they "choose" a gender.

I really see no parallels to your child's situation. This isn't about a child's health and well being, it is about a parent's preference and a theoretical framework regarding gender that has zero scientific backing or validity.

Edited by maize
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10 minutes ago, maize said:

Do you feel like OP's family situation is comparable to yours?

You've shared enough of your son's struggles here for me to know the situation has been very serious.

It seems to me that people who experience serious gender/sex dysphoria that only transition will allow them to cope with would themselves be concerned about people muddying the waters with the assumption that young children in general would be better off ungendered until they "choose" a gender.

I really see no parallels to your child's situation. This isn't about a child's health and well being, it is about a parent's preference and a theoretical framework regarding gender that has zero scientific backing or validity.

Are you trying to tell me every single post here has solely been about the OP's situation? It seems to me it has veered off quite a bit and a few times it's been discussed that it takes some power away from others, mostly females,  to be forced to use language they don't agree with. I was responding to that. I've already shared that what the parents in the OP are doing is not something I would do but I have also jumped in time to time to share in the general discussion. 

ETA: I wanted to add that while I wouldn't do what the parents in the OP are doing, I actually wish it was something I would have been brave enough to do for my son. It might have actually made things so much better for him had he known from an early age that it was ok. I have no way of knowing if it might have saved him, and us, years of hell. 

Edited by Joker
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6 minutes ago, Joker said:

Are you trying to tell me every single post here has solely been about the OP's situation? It seems to me it has veered off quite a bit and a few times it's been discussed that it takes some power away from others, mostly females,  to be forced to use language they don't agree with. I was responding to that. I've already shared that what the parents in the OP are doing is not something I would do but I have also jumped in time to time to share in the general discussion. 

ETA: I wanted to add that while I wouldn't do what the parents in the OP are doing, I actually wish it was something I would have been brave enough to do for my son. It might have actually made things so much better for him had he known from an early age that it was ok. I have no way of knowing if it might have saved him, and us, years of hell. 

My post that you quoted referenced the OP's scenario specifically and was in response to another quote referencing that scenario.

In my vaccine analogy, you have the child who actually suffered a serious vaccine reaction. Does that mean every other child would be better off unvaccinated? Yes in hindsight maybe your child would have been better off without recognition of her biological sex (using her and sex here because that is what we go off for young children) from an early age. At this point we have zero evidence to suggest that most children would be better off that way.

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No one has really supported the OP situation, or at least not as what should be the norm. But this thread has really veered into transgender people are anti-feminist by definition territory.

 

Quote

Unless the whole society calls all girls and boys "they," singling one kid out for an unconventional pronoun will make the child feel "other" regardless of whether he/she eventually joins the tiny % of people who are non-cis.  And no, I do not believe the removal of sex-based pronouns will fix the fact that transgender people are going to feel "other."

I dont' support using "they" universally, but, for the first time I'm considering it in some contexts.    In our coop we have a kid who visibly presents as one gender but identifies as they other. It's a girl, who dresses and acts very much like a boy-- including hair, accessories, interests, etc.  Gender ambiguous name. About 12.  But  she still prefers  "she / her". She doesn't complain when someone messes up but their mother quietly asked the teacher to use "she / her" next time.   Since meeting that kid this year I've been a little more careful to not assume when I don't know the family, it isn't obvious, I can't tell from the name. Particularly in cases where we are dealing with a child I am going to err on the side of caution. As an adult , even screwing up a kids name more than once is something I would apologize for.

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3 hours ago, poppy said:

No one has really supported the OP situation, or at least not as what should be the norm. But this thread has really veered into transgender people are anti-feminist by definition territory.

 

I dont' support using "they" universally, but, for the first time I'm considering it in some contexts.    In our coop we have a kid who visibly presents as one gender but identifies as they other. It's a girl, who dresses and acts very much like a boy-- including hair, accessories, interests, etc.  Gender ambiguous name. About 12.  But  she still prefers  "she / her". She doesn't complain when someone messes up but their mother quietly asked the teacher to use "she / her" next time.   Since meeting that kid this year I've been a little more careful to not assume when I don't know the family, it isn't obvious, I can't tell from the name. Particularly in cases where we are dealing with a child I am going to err on the side of caution. As an adult , even screwing up a kids name more than once is something I would apologize for.

 

Wait, so it's a female who likes to use female pronouns and considers herself female, but tends to wear boy clothes and hairstyles, etc?  That sounds like me and a million other tomboys growing up.  Including someone occasionally making an error about their sex.  

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3 hours ago, texasmom33 said:

I think because largely, with this whole shifting of things it's women who are now being shoved over and expected to be accommodating about it. Let's take the sports example. How long did it take for female athletes to be taken seriously? To have their own competitions? To have their own sponsor's and for it to be a legitimate field for them? And now, you can have a newly transitioned male-to-female come in and compete with them and it's supposed to be an even playing field. Ignore the two decades of testosterone among other biological differences one of the athletes is now brining to the table there, and we're just supposed to move over. And be gracious losers. Yes, I know that trans people are marginalized. Yes I know that they want to be seen on a par with whatever group they're choosing to identify as. But at what cost? I've noticed that it doesn't seem to impact the male world quite as equally. You can have a female to male transgender person go compete in a Men's sporting event and is it going to disqualify any of those biologically born men, or serve as any true competition to them? Most likely, no. Not unless is was already a stunningly successful female athlete. Should we just go straight to unisex sporting competitions? Will most women even bother to compete at a high level at that point? Will our daughters, or will they just see it as a lost cause? 

I think concerns that women have towards things like this are dismissed as being so infrequent that they shouldn't count against the forward movement such acceptance provides the transgender population as a whole. It's the greater good argument all over again. Sure a few women will be pushed out, but isn't that worth it for progress? That is a very slippery slope. And it's actually sacrificing the success of women here. It's not men who are going to be losing scholarships. It's not men who are going to be losing sports competitions and opportunity. It's WOMEN. So in light of that, I have a lot of trouble seeing how one can be a feminist and yet not realize that this is chipping away at things women have barely even been allowed to have for a century. I don't see men being asked to make the same concessions women are on any of this type of thing beyond possibly sharing a bathroom. 

 

I feel like what people miss is that these things - scholarships for women, women's positions in political parties, women's sports, change rooms and prison accommodations - are not about gender presentation. They exist because of people's reproductive category cases or caused issues within that sphere.  

In some cases, perhaps there is no need at this time, in the west, for certain things - perhaps women only scholarships are not really necessary, for example.  But women still tend to be under-represented in politics, and have certain policy concerns, which are because they have a uterus.  Women have different physical characteristics than men, because they have bodies adapted for bearing children, which affect sports performance.

Sometimes it seems that because childrearing has become more limited in the west, and we have become used to certain ideas, we forget the origin of many of the differences between male and female populations. 

Edited by Bluegoat
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2 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Wait, so it's a female who likes to use female pronouns and considers herself female, but tends to wear boy clothes and hairstyles, etc?  That sounds like me and a million other tomboys growing up.  Including someone occasionally making an error about their sex.  

And the automatic questions over whether she's a 'real' girl because of some stereotypical boy presentation sounds like reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes to me. (using the feminist definition of gender here - tool to reinforce female subjugation)

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2 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Wait, so it's a female who likes to use female pronouns and considers herself female, but tends to wear boy clothes and hairstyles, etc?  That sounds like me and a million other tomboys growing up.  Including someone occasionally making an error about their sex.  

 

It's an unschooly, progressive, secular coop in one of the most liberal cities in the US. We have bucketloads of tom boys.

Oh wait, are you saying you assume every male-appearing person you see is female? Or do  you prefer making mistakes over erring on the side of ambiguity? That's not a crime, but it does seem a  bit truculent.

37 minutes ago, LMD said:

And the automatic questions over whether she's a 'real' girl because of some stereotypical boy presentation sounds like reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes to me. (using the feminist definition of gender here - tool to reinforce female subjugation)

 

Those ugly thoughts came entirely from you.

I am a feminist, raising feminist children, for the record.

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5 hours ago, texasmom33 said:

I think because largely, with this whole shifting of things it's women who are now being shoved over and expected to be accommodating about it. Let's take the sports example. How long did it take for female athletes to be taken seriously? To have their own competitions? To have their own sponsor's and for it to be a legitimate field for them? And now, you can have a newly transitioned male-to-female come in and compete with them and it's supposed to be an even playing field. Ignore the two decades of testosterone among other biological differences one of the athletes is now brining to the table there, and we're just supposed to move over. And be gracious losers. Yes, I know that trans people are marginalized. Yes I know that they want to be seen on a par with whatever group they're choosing to identify as. But at what cost? I've noticed that it doesn't seem to impact the male world quite as equally. You can have a female to male transgender person go compete in a Men's sporting event and is it going to disqualify any of those biologically born men, or serve as any true competition to them? Most likely, no. Not unless is was already a stunningly successful female athlete. Should we just go straight to unisex sporting competitions? Will most women even bother to compete at a high level at that point? Will our daughters, or will they just see it as a lost cause? 

I think concerns that women have towards things like this are dismissed as being so infrequent that they shouldn't count against the forward movement such acceptance provides the transgender population as a whole. It's the greater good argument all over again. Sure a few women will be pushed out, but isn't that worth it for progress? That is a very slippery slope. And it's actually sacrificing the success of women here. It's not men who are going to be losing scholarships. It's not men who are going to be losing sports competitions and opportunity. It's WOMEN. So in light of that, I have a lot of trouble seeing how one can be a feminist and yet not realize that this is chipping away at things women have barely even been allowed to have for a century. I don't see men being asked to make the same concessions women are on any of this type of thing beyond possibly sharing a bathroom. 

 

 

Question for you. Do you have any concerns at all about female-to-male transgender people, or is your objection entirely for male-to-female transgender people?

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I wouldn't put any emphasis on this issue at all for this age. Most of my own dc went through stages of wanting to be the opposite gender of their biological. I've seen lots of other 3 and 4 year olds do the same. No big deal. Seems to be completely normal. 

I also dressed my dd in "boys" clothes because she adored yellow and it was hard to find girl clothes in that colour for some reason. They were excellent clothes to pass on to her 3 brothers!

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21 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

The thing that makes me a selfish mom, apparently, is that not only do I consider the cost to 'those few women pushed out' unacceptable, I also consider the so called progressive dialogue over such pushing out to be nothing more than propaganda.

Witness most recently - Rachel McKinnon setting a woman's Masters cycling world record. Rachel is a fully intact male. Rachel went through a male puberty and Rachel has all the physical advantages over those who went through a female puberty you can think of. Rachel asks people to disbelieve the evidence of their eyes - when Rachel was receiving the gold medal on the podium, Rachel was clearly male.  So Rachel, imo, used Rachel's male body to push a woman out of first, second and third place. OK, that's the new world now. It's not cheating because....I don't know...but apparently it's not officially cheating.

But then, Rachel not only bullied the third place getter (who should have been second) for saying 'It wasn't fair', by threatening to report her to sporting authorities, Rachel wrote a series of tweets explaining that because she is a woman (her gender identity) and because she has a body, her (fully intact) male body is a woman's body, and anyone who says otherwise is a big lying bigot who Rachel hopes will never be able to compete in the world of sport.

This is where the primacy of gender theory over the reality of sex ends up. It ends up in sacrificing women - in sports, in prisons, in refuges, on all woman shortlists. It ends up in women being doxxed, their jobs threatened and their voices silenced in workplaces, schools, community groups, even between friends. It's an authoritarian movement, and while the parents in the OP probably do believe they are doing the right thing, the reason I would not (in the absence of knowing the child had been diagnosed with sex dysphoria) change my language is because none of us should feel coerced into supporting an ideology that is 1. unproven and 2. authoritarian.

~

I don't know what you've been posting, Joker, because I'm not reading as there's no point you and I getting in a back and forward. I will just say, as I always say....that I wish your child the best, that I am glad they are doing well, and that one can critique gender ideology at the same time as supporting human rights for transexual people who transtion in order to treat their sex dysphoria, in employment, study, housing, medical care and so on.

 

I remember in previous thread-- several, actually -- you would get upset if anyone mentioned allowing teens into the bathroom of their choice, because that was emotionally  manipulative and didn't get at the real issues.

Can we perhaps agree that an an extreme outlier, like  Rachel McKinnon, equally does not get at the real issue?

Or do refuse to read what I write, just like you refuse to read what Joker writes?

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3 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Wait, so it's a female who likes to use female pronouns and considers herself female, but tends to wear boy clothes and hairstyles, etc?  That sounds like me and a million other tomboys growing up.  Including someone occasionally making an error about their sex.  

This was honestly my first thought. And, frankly, exactly my experience growing up. 

55 minutes ago, poppy said:

 

It's an unschooly, progressive, secular coop in one of the most liberal cities in the US. We have bucketloads of tom boys.

Oh wait, are you saying you assume every male-appearing person you see is female? Or do  you prefer making mistakes over erring on the side of ambiguity? That's not a crime, but it does seem a  bit truculent.

<snip>

Which brings me here — Poppy, I’m sure it’s me, but I don’t understand the distinction you’re drawing here between a girl who would (at least earlier) be called a tomboy and a girl who prefers dressing/presenting like a boy, but identifies as a girl. 

And I really don’t understand your second paragraph. 

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7 minutes ago, brehon said:

This was honestly my first thought. And, frankly, exactly my experience growing up. 

Which brings me here — Poppy, I’m sure it’s me, but I don’t understand the distinction you’re drawing here between a girl who would (at least earlier) be called a tomboy and a girl who prefers dressing/presenting like a boy, but identifies as a girl. 

And I really don’t understand your second paragraph. 

 

My 10 year daughter has short hair, never make up or jewelry, avoids pink,  wears sneaker always, climbs trees, is definitely a tomboy.

The girl I mentioned in my post who presents as male- I do not mean "is not at all girly". I mean has a barber haircut, wears blocky clothing from the boys section, chose a boy-version of her name. (Not "Chris" or "Jamie" or , think more--- if her name was Andria, goes by Andy, spelled with a y). She appears to me to fit the stereotype of a boy, moreso than half the boys  I know.  I later learned that she is a foster child.  I do not know her history at all, but, we all got it wrong at first when we met Andy.   Meeting her gave me pause. It was atypical. But I am not well verse in proper terminology so I am not sure if "presents as a boy" is the right way to say what I'm trying to say.

Basically meeting her made me think, next time I meet a kid I'm supposed to teach (our coop is about 80 people), I will be more careful in not assuming. I know that little slights, even unintentional ones, from teachers and other authority figures can feel like a blow. I think of it like mispronouncing a name. A human mistake, not a huge deal, but one you would apologize for and be careful to get right going forward.  I would treat a transgendered kid the same way-  if I guessed gender, and was wrong, I would say "oh my mistake" and use the preferred pronoun going forward. And  I think it's odd to refuse to do so.

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1 hour ago, poppy said:

 

It's an unschooly, progressive, secular coop in one of the most liberal cities in the US. We have bucketloads of tom boys.

Oh wait, are you saying you assume every male-appearing person you see is female? Or do  you prefer making mistakes over erring on the side of ambiguity? That's not a crime, but it does seem a  bit truculent.

 

 

So what's the difference?  Now the tomboys are maybe not tomboys at all since they are wearing boy clothes and all.  Do you not see the problem there?  If clothing and names are not inherently gendered why would you even think a girl wearing a certain set of clothes means she's actually a boy?  it just means what the person happens to like.

Occasionally people make an error about someone's sex - especially if they haven't yet any secondary sexual characteristics.  It's just one of those things that happens sometimes, it's not a sign of the person being nasty or thoughtless, though some might be better at picking up such things than others.  It shouldn't be a big deal. 

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1 hour ago, StellaM said:

 

This is what interests me about the parents in the OP. 

If they are obscuring her - let's call it her social sex, the world's knowledge that she is female - in order to reduce the female socialisation she receives, that's an experiment I can understand, though I think it's shortsighted and unlikely to have an impact on her experience of femaleness in the long term.

If they are waiting for her to announce her sex, that's just loopy. The girl clearly has a sex. Or they wouldn't know she's a girl whose she/her pronouns are now to be replaced by 'they'. We don't wait for children to decide their sex, because sex doesn't work that way. The little girl's sex was determined at conception.

If they are waiting to see if she shows signs of sex dysphoria, that's misguided and sad. The vast majority of children, even the GNC ones, even the gay ones, are not sex dysphoric. I agree with posters who suggest such an approach has more chance of inducing a dysphoria. 

However, if they are waiting for her to announce a gender identity.... what is this identity if it has nothing to do with her sex, nothing to do with being dysphoric...? In the absence of a definition, and I have never heard a non-circular definition - it must be to do with sex stereotyping. She is a boy because ??? She is a girl because ??? She is non binary because (she's not like other girls ??) 

In this case, the 'experiment' relies on a series of fairly regressive concepts we left behind in the 70's. And it also relies on an absolutely unproven idea that all people have an innate gender identity residing somewhere in the brain, which is not the same as  one's sex, or awareness of one's sex. An unproven concept. 

 

Yes - if the idea is really to avoid gender socialization, the "ideal" outcome would be for the child to never announce a gender preference.  But that doesn't seem to be the goal or expectation.

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1 hour ago, texasmom33 said:

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking here. I typed out a really long answer, but I think I'll stick to short for now until I have more clarity on what you're asking. By concerns do you mean concerns about rights for men as opposed to women? 

I do not have the same concern for female-to-male as far as erosion of rights.  There really isn't an area I can see being encroached upon in the same way as it's being for women. Be it career opportunities, sports, or anything else- I think men as a whole typically have a more level playing field for reasons I won't clog up this post with. We all know them though- family responsibility, etc. etc. Men don't have the same safety concerns as women either, and they don't have the same margInalization history as women. I can't see how a female to male transgender person would do anything to jeopardize the status quo for men. The only one at a disadvantage there as far as I can see with what thought I've given it, would be for that transgender person himself entering into a male world. But I don't think it's an encroachment issue at that point, so to me the two are different situations. 

Honestly to me it's much like a race thing at this point and comes down to whether or not you believe that certain historically marginalized groups deserve special protections. it's sticky. Of course transgenders are historically marginalized and are at many of the same risks women are. Does that mean we pile them all in together as one group- women and transgender women- who may still be anatomically male?  Or do we pick one over the other?  Can we have separate groups, or at that point is it a replay of separate but equal? It's a lot to work through. It's isn't clean cut at all when you dig down to it. You basically have to decide where one group's protections end and the other's begin. Someone is going to be left feeling like they were caught out in the rain at the end of the day I think, no matter how it gets played. And yes, I'm going to come down on the side of the biological women every. single. time. I am not okay with letting a very tiny percentage of extremely vocal people strip away what safety and progress has been granted to women. I know that's not the enlightened stance so many are pushing women to take, but I really think it's nuts that in 2018 we're still being "pushed" into anything, much less being the graceful, accommodating, fairer sex who just roll over for whoever wants to tell us what to do next. 

 

I think all this is worrying, and in fact I don't think it is good for men either, but I also think it's just all so far from the question of what to do about dysphoric people.  

Gender/queer theory is not about sex dysphoria, it's a whole separate set of ideas, and if adopted it has an entirely different set of consequences.  I think in fact it's not only different, it's opposed to the dysphoria issue - the two ways of thinking are logically and factually contradictory.  If queer theory wins the day, it's not going to be good for those who suffer from dysphoria either.  Heck, according to the Stonewall definition, I was transgendered as a kid.

People seem to be missing that most people who are transgendered in this set of constructs are not dysphoric at all.  

 

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9 hours ago, poppy said:

I dont' support using "they" universally, but, for the first time I'm considering it in some contexts.    In our coop we have a kid who visibly presents as one gender but identifies as they other. It's a girl, who dresses and acts very much like a boy-- including hair, accessories, interests, etc.  Gender ambiguous name. About 12.  But  she still prefers  "she / her". She doesn't complain when someone messes up but their mother quietly asked the teacher to use "she / her" next time.   Since meeting that kid this year I've been a little more careful to not assume when I don't know the family, it isn't obvious, I can't tell from the name. Particularly in cases where we are dealing with a child I am going to err on the side of caution. As an adult , even screwing up a kids name more than once is something I would apologize for.

I might be misunderstanding, but are you saying you would use "they" because a person who calls herself a girl (and who is female) looks like a boy?  Or are you saying "they" is appropriate when you really, honestly can't tell whether it's a girl/boy and nobody has told you?  For the former, I would definitely use she unless otherwise instructed.  For the latter, I would use conventional ways of referring to a child whose sex is unclear to you - mainly using the given name or, if necessary, asking privately for help knowing the correct gender pronoun.  "I'm sorry I don't know Name well enough to say - is it he or she?"  I was a tomboy and this would not have offended me as long as it was said kindly.  I would not refer to any individual IRL as "they."  "They" referring to a singular individual is only accepted (by most) when it's a generic individual - not someone specific whom you know or deal with IRL.

My kids had a teammate on their girls' teams who was extremely athletic and wore "boys' clothes" and an androgynous hairdo.  She was 9yo and I knew her sex only because she was on all-girl teams.  I felt maybe she was (or would eventually identify as) trans, but I would never say anything to imply that.  She deserved the freedom to experiment like every other girl until she had a good feel for who she was and what she wanted to do about it.  I think in all likelihood she went into puberty much like my girls, because again, hormones do make a difference.

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1 hour ago, Bluegoat said:

 

So what's the difference?  Now the tomboys are maybe not tomboys at all since they are wearing boy clothes and all.  Do you not see the problem there?  If clothing and names are not inherently gendered why would you even think a girl wearing a certain set of clothes means she's actually a boy?  it just means what the person happens to like.

Occasionally people make an error about someone's sex - especially if they haven't yet any secondary sexual characteristics.  It's just one of those things that happens sometimes, it's not a sign of the person being nasty or thoughtless, though some might be better at picking up such things than others.  It shouldn't be a big deal. 


Of course it's not a big deal.

Perhaps I misunderstood you. If a transgender person asked to you to use a prefered pronoun (not matching their biological sex), would you object?
If you were directly asked to use a non-gendered pronoun -- "please call me they not he or she" -- would you?

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12 minutes ago, poppy said:


Of course it's not a big deal.

Perhaps I misunderstood you. If a transgender person asked to you to use a prefered pronoun (not matching their biological sex), would you object?
If you were directly asked to use a non-gendered pronoun -- "please call me they not he or she" -- would you?

 

It would really depend.  There was a time when I considered that as a question of etiquette, which normally had no implications beyond etiquette.  However, this seems no longer to be the case - now the etiquette seems to be used as "evidence" for certain types of ontological or epistemic positions, which I don't happen to agree with.  I have serious issues with being shamed into using language on the basis of individual kindness and relationship when doing so is then in turn being used as justification for ideas like individuals owning pronouns, or gender identity being some kind of internal essence.  And - its not clear whether the shame would be for the potential bad manners or potential lack of ideological orthodoxy.  I would probably make the decision on the basis of what seemed to be implied in the asking and the environmental context.  Which is al unfortunately rather subjective and difficult to pin down.

This is one reason, though not the most serious, that I think the gender theory crowd has been fairly detrimental to actual people suffering from serious body dysphoria around gender - people don't like being backed into a corner by their good natured desire to be kind, and they will end up resisting.

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13 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

I've been interested in the number of women who talk about going through fairly intense stages of wanting to be boys, and that these stages sometimes extended into middle childhood and puberty. They often talk about a process of gradually reconciling to their sex, and in adulthood, particularly as mothers, feeling finally quite comfortable in their femaleness.

I do wonder if we are doing some girls a disservice to seize on this, before they have a chance to naturally resolve their feelings, as a sign they are literally boys.

 

Not to get too quasi-mystical, but I tend to think alienation from our bodies is really part of the human condition.  It's common even in people without some sort of trauma.  Besides being a tomboy, I found puberty really hard, I didn't like the changes in my body, totally apart from cultural stuff, I was emotionally all over the place and distracted, and I had a really hard time with menstruation - just from a management POV - I kind of wish my mom had helped me more with that but I don't think it was something she struggled with in the same way.  

Our society does this more than many though, the amount of body modification, beauty products, plastic surgery, the way we can't deal with ageing or death.  

I've wondered a little if the way we defer things like marriage and parenthood might not be an element in this though, and extended adolescence generally.  I know those things are supposed to be freeing, but I'm not so sure it doesn't affect our physicality in ways we don't really see.

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22 minutes ago, Bluegoat said:

 

Not to get too quasi-mystical, but I tend to think alienation from our bodies is really part of the human condition.  It's common even in people without some sort of trauma.  Besides being a tomboy, I found puberty really hard, I didn't like the changes in my body, totally apart from cultural stuff, I was emotionally all over the place and distracted, and I had a really hard time with menstruation - just from a management POV - I kind of wish my mom had helped me more with that but I don't think it was something she struggled with in the same way.  

Our society does this more than many though, the amount of body modification, beauty products, plastic surgery, the way we can't deal with ageing or death.  

I've wondered a little if the way we defer things like marriage and parenthood might not be an element in this though, and extended adolescence generally.  I know those things are supposed to be freeing, but I'm not so sure it doesn't affect our physicality in ways we don't really see.

I didn't *want* to be a boy, but during puberty I was often terrified I somehow *was* one.  IDK, I wasn't really a tomboy, but I wasn't very girly in the usual ways, and I didn't think I looked very pretty.  One day after having looked in a mirror at the store with a hat on, and thinking I looked like a boy (and feeling crushed about it), I went home and checked to be sure I hadn't somehow grown a penis or something.  I mean, I felt completely ridiculous about it - I was 13 or so - but somehow the prospect that I wasn't really a girl but was somehow a boy in disguise or something just felt so strong and overpowering in that moment.  I honestly didn't truly *feel* female until after having kids; marriage, while providing what I thought ought to be strong proof that I was truly a woman (one that I certainly used as rational reassurance), didn't actually overcome the visceral fear.  It took pregnancy and labor to do it.

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I wonder (am typing as I think so this might be 100% nonsense) if the women's liberation movement has had some unintended consequences this way - like, we've begun to insist that being female is socially equivalent to being male, or at least should be.  Women should have the same opportunities in career, should have the same rate of pay, should have the same rights of participation in legal matters (voting, property ownership, serving on juries or as judges, a zillion other things I'm sure I'm not thinking of as we just take them for granted).  But really, biologically, we're not the same. Our bodies and (imo, as I am a conservative who believes that many gender norms are reflective of biology) minds are determined by our sex, and they do limit both our rights and our responsibilities in society, and should.  Women can't work, on a societal level (by which I mean I'm not speaking about specific women but about women as a class), as long of hours or with as singular a focus as men over the course of our lifetimes because we bear and care for children.  We get pregnant, we breastfeed, we nurture the young, and often we nurture the old, too.  We're less inclined to do some jobs, like engineering and trash collecting and construction work and the hard sciences - some because they're more physically demanding or more dangerous and others because women's brains are more inclined to social functions (see nurturing) and less inclined to systems (again, I am speaking of women as a class).  

So anyway, we have this new social movement that is pretty universally pushed in public schools that says girls must perform like boys - must put off childbearing until they've achieved a basic level of (previously male) success in career or education, must get jobs outside the home and be able to support ourselves independently, must vote and participate in society in a male way.  But we retain female bodies and brains, because a social movement can't change evolutionary biology.  

What does that do, psychologically?  Maybe in some people it makes them say, ugh, I am socially compelled (obviously this is subconscious) to act like a man, focus on man things - but I have this body that doesn't support that, a body that menstruates and ovulates and is vulnerable to men in a way that men aren't vulnerable to other men.

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On 10/27/2018 at 5:31 PM, bolt. said:

We all use “they” as a singular pronoun already.

We use it when talking about an individual who is hypothetical, unknown or anonymous. We already use “they” as a way to be vague and non-specific about gender — even for individuals.

An anonymous donor is “they”. A swimming coach you haven’t met yet is “they”. A criminal who hasn’t been identified is “they”. A person who will win the student body president election is “they”. The patient, the client, the student, the healthcare worker, and the customer are all “they” when “they” are discussed in the singular but abstract sense. The person across the room that we can’t see or interpret their visual gender markers is “they” so we don’t have to guess. 

We do it all the time. We know how to use this pronoun. We know what it means.

It’s just unfamiliar to us when we *do* know gender information about someone — to *intentionally* leave it out of our grammar choices. None the less, we are free to leave things vague if we want to. It’s not a form of lying, collusion, or gender denial. It’s just refraining from continually referencing gender information in conversation.

A lot of people are making a big deal out of not being allowed to be as specific as they like about other people’s gender identity.

 

Not to mention the fact that for some people it's not even about gender identity, it's literally about genitals. "How dare you deprive me of the right to flag the genital status of every single person I refer to, even when it's completely irrelevant to the conversation!"

"Did anyone help you with your purchase today?"
"Yes, that penis-person did."

"In order to withdraw from this class, you need to have this form signed by Prof. Smith."
 "Yes, vagina-owner agreed to meet with me this afternoon to sign it."

"Did Dr. Jones write the prescription you asked for?"
"I cannot possibly answer that question until I know if Dr. Jones has a penis or a vagina."


I look forward to the day when we no longer need to refer to the genital arrangement of every human in order to have a conversation. And I think everyone who says that they (ha!) cannot possibly use they/them for third person singular, despite the fact that such use dates back to the 14th century, should immediately revert to using thou/thee for second person singular (and while they're at it, they should use ye, not you, for the nominative second person plural).

Edited by Corraleno
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Do you think sex is limited to having one or the other set of genitals, with no other differences or effects from those differences (either social or biological, or social based on biology)?

 

Do you think men and women's brains are the same? Hormones? Bodies other than genitals? Roles in society, either natural or artificially imposed?  If English loses gendered pronouns do you think that would make men and women the same except for a minor physical difference?

 

ETA: sorry, I meant that as a question for corraleno

Edited by moonflower
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2 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

It's not nonsense - though I don't agree with much of what you write, because although biology is real, and evolutionary psych has some valuable insights, there's an ideological bias in this position also.

For example, there is no hard evidence that women's brains differ functionally from male brains in the absence of environmental effects. And I think the idea that there are 'male brains' which differ functionally from 'female brains' is quite harmful, whether it comes from post modernist queer theory or from conservatives.

However, I don't think you are wrong to point out that while biology may not map completely onto destiny, boy oh boy, does it have quite a lot to DO with female destiny! One of the reasons I left feminist activism as a young woman was because I felt a certain ideological denial of the reality of the maternal sexed body was increasingly being required in order to push a capitalist vision of equality. The biological and social needs of mothers were restricted to provision of reproductive control, and childcare. I think that's a very limited analysis, and dealing with issues of maternity remains a great challenge for feminism.

I also believe that academic feminism is to blame for bringing the word 'gender' to prominence, and if we could go back in time and change that, and only ever talk about sex and sex roles and sex stereotypes, that would be a good and clarifying thing.

One of my concerns about queer theory driving legislation is that the resulting backlash will not only punish gay people and transexuals, but will be used to push back on feminism and promote regressive views of what woman is. I really don't want girls at school being told they have 'girl brains'.

 I also don't want girls being told they might be boys if they exhibit an 'identity' which maps onto steroetypically male things.

AND I don't want a vision of feminist equality which buys into the notion that a woman's female body is irrelevant, that denies the differences between male and female bodies and experiences, and which conceptualised the needs of mothers as their right to perform as economic units only.

 

I know that for me, while I have no conception of being male and never have had, I've always liked being female, been comfortable as female, never had that sense of alienation from body that people have mentioned in this thread.  I had easy periods, generally, and easy pregnancies and childbirth, and I grew up privileged enough financially (middle/lower middle in the US, and quite smart which makes up for a lot), and was neither super unattractive nor particularly attractive - short, unibrow, slightly chubby.  So I didn't suffer on either end of the spectrum from being female.

But as I'm older, I can sense some of my vulnerability as a woman.  I don't sense that I would have the same vulnerability as a man - of course, I'd have different vulnerabilities (I'd be eligible for the draft, have to do more of the dangerous jobs in society, have on the whole worse health, earlier death, etc.) but these particular vulnerabilities - these ovaries and this susceptibility to nurturing young people and these breasts which are required to nurse babies and this aversion to violence - these are products of being female, and I do feel somewhat alienated from my body because of them, now that I have a sense of the limits they impose.

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4 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Yeah. To be fair, a lot of what people believe re gender is coming out of a queer theory that men like Foucault can take responsibility for. But in retrospect, feminists should never have adopted terminology that lost sight of the body.

 

I think to some extent that is an English speaking thing.  I've been told that in German the equivalent term is "social sex" which really has somewhat different implications.  I don't know how gender really even was chosen out of all the words, it really doesn't seem to be obvious that it is fit for purpose - you are probably right though that it relates to postmodern thinking on how language relates to physical and metaphysical realities.  

I am not sure the feminists or gender studies people that took up that language really thought it would go there though.  I also think part of the problem was they denied to too great a degree the biological roots of many things they thought were just social - and a lot of people never really believe they were purely social, though they adopted the language.

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6 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

This should be easily investigated by comparing societies which don't use gendered pronouns, with societies that do.

If pronouns make all the difference, we should see a correlation between use of non-gendered pronouns, and a reduction in the damaging effects of heteronormativity ( I use this terminology as this seems to be the claim made.)

 

Looks like not so much of a correlation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_genderless_languages

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19 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

Oh lordy, you sure ?! ?

 Sheila Jeffrey's Unpacking Queer Politics. It's availabe as a free download, I think.

Judith Butler ? (But read Martha Nussbaum's critique of Butler first). Gender Trouble is a later 'classic' of queer theory.

Foucault's The History of Sexuality.

 

Thanks!

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19 hours ago, texasmom33 said:

The thing is Rachel McKinnon isn't an outlier right now. This is becoming a bigger and bigger issue for womens' and girls'  sports, especially at the high school and college level. Girls are getting knocked out from placing by non-transitioned (as far as surgery or hormones for an extended period of time)  male-to-female transgender people. They are stopping them from advancing when they otherwise WOULD be the state, or whatever champions putting them in line for scholarships and college opportunities. Those are gone. They don't get a second chance. They worked for years and then a biological male registered to compete in a girls' competition knocks them out. They don't have another place they can compete. There is no plan B as far as the competition. But, there is nothing stopping the biological men identifying as women in this case, from competing with other men and being open to the same opportunities as far as competition, scholarship, or anything else as the men. It's a completely unfair set up. There is no winning for these young women. They don't even have rules in place to define if the men have to even have started transition or what they're defining as "transitioned" in many cases. It's a complete cluster. And I definitely think it is a real issue. To say it's not seems to undermine the importance of female athletes as a group and the validity and importance of their performance and abilities. 

 

Yep. And I have yet to have anyone on the "let's all get on board with all-gender-is-neutral" side address this issue in any substantial way. Or in any way whatsoever. Usually what happens is this issue is brought up, and then ignored.

I do have empathy for the many people who struggle with societal gender "assignments" and who do not feel that they as individuals fit within their own bodies. I often wonder how much of an influence of the cubic-bazillion-crap-ton of endocrine-disrupting chemicals that have been dumped into our environment the last 30 or so years (some of which affect the fetus at parts-per-trillion) plays into people today not aligned with their biological bodies (that, we'll never know, as the whole environment is it's own cluster & it's impossible to tease something like that out now). I am not opposed to re-arranging our language on a societal level if that's what is needed/where we are headed (but I would point out that you need a large enough buy-in from others to have that happen).

But I am also concerned about that we ARE blasting right past issues such as what happens when biological males get to define - instantly and with no questioning allowed - who & what qualifies as "female" and "woman". Talk about disempowerment. Talk about the ultimate power for patriarchy. 

But apparently to raise these issues makes me "transphobic", and difficult. (ETA: no one here has said that to me. But I have been called that (and worse), for daring to raise these issues in other settings. It's like, in the last 5 years or so, we have a whole new social Gospel with it's own set of disciples. Gawd help you if you cross them.) 

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16 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

It would really depend.  There was a time when I considered that as a question of etiquette, which normally had no implications beyond etiquette.  However, this seems no longer to be the case - now the etiquette seems to be used as "evidence" for certain types of ontological or epistemic positions, which I don't happen to agree with.  I have serious issues with being shamed into using language on the basis of individual kindness and relationship when doing so is then in turn being used as justification for ideas like individuals owning pronouns, or gender identity being some kind of internal essence.  And - its not clear whether the shame would be for the potential bad manners or potential lack of ideological orthodoxy.  I would probably make the decision on the basis of what seemed to be implied in the asking and the environmental context.  Which is al unfortunately rather subjective and difficult to pin down.

This is one reason, though not the most serious, that I think the gender theory crowd has been fairly detrimental to actual people suffering from serious body dysphoria around gender - people don't like being backed into a corner by their good natured desire to be kind, and they will end up resisting.

 

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?

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28 minutes ago, Happy2BaMom said:

 

Yep. And I have yet to have anyone on the "let's all get on board with all-gender-is-neutral" side address this issue in any substantial way. Or in any way whatsoever. Usually what happens is this issue is brought up, and then ignored.

I do have empathy for the many people who struggle with societal gender "assignments" and who do not feel that they as individuals fit within their own bodies. I often wonder how much of an influence of the cubic-bazillion-crap-ton of endocrine-disrupting chemicals that have been dumped into our environment the last 30 or so years (some of which affect the fetus at parts-per-trillion) plays into people today not aligned with their biological bodies (that, we'll never know, as the whole environment is it's own cluster & it's impossible to tease something like that out now). I am not opposed to re-arranging our language on a societal level if that's what is needed/where we are headed (but I would point out that you need a large enough buy-in from others to have that happen).

But I am also concerned about that we ARE blasting right past issues such as what happens when biological males get to define - instantly and with no questioning allowed - who & what qualifies as "female" and "woman". Talk about disempowerment. Talk about the ultimate power for patriarchy. 

But apparently to raise these issues makes me "transphobic", and difficult. (ETA: no one here has said that to me. But I have been called that (and worse), for daring to raise these issues in other settings. It's like, in the last 5 years or so, we have a whole new social Gospel with it's own set of disciples. Gawd help you if you cross them.) 

 

Do you see that kind of fervor with some of the posters on the other side, such as Stella?  I really do.  There is a plethora of angry ideologues, which make thoughtful conversation difficult.  I don't think this is actually a trans issue specificially but more a by product of  "call out" culture. Which has its own set of 'sacred texts' and talking points spread by social media and immediate, caustic retorts for any conversation that doesn't fall in line with [insert your strong opinion].

For example: my church has a bit of schism over  what I would consider fairly extreme anti-racism workers who will instantly call you out as a supporter of white surpemacy if you don't immediately and silently acquiesce to the primacy of their voices.... like, asking clarifying questions get a response of "I am so very tired, you are centering yourself, you are the problem".   I have also seen this as an issue for autism advocacy, where there is so much anger-- probably well justified, but still. I keep being told that as a parent of an autistic child  that my role is to listen to adult autistic advocates and accept what they say, again without allowing questions or conversation or debate. Which ----- I'm white and pretty willing to de-center myself from anti-racism work but if we're talking about my kid, I will be a part of the conversation, even if it makes me look like the bad guy. I dont' feel bad about that. 

 

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2 minutes ago, texasmom33 said:

I don't think it's faulty logic on her part to say that social pressure=rebellion might factor into it greatly some people, because an awful lot of people don't act logically when there is emotion involved in an issue. They're like people that way. Be it politics (#resist anyone?), race, religion, or anything else. Rebellion against social movements people don't like has probably been around as long as people have. 

 

Well yes, scorn for [sneering voice] "political correctness" has been around for decades, as in "I don't like femi-nazis, excuse me for not being politically correct!" I guess a better way of asking is, if it was a cause you cared about, how would you approach "don't alienate people" with "speak truth / seek justice".  What is the appropriate balance.

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11 minutes ago, texasmom33 said:

Yes. Yes. Yes. x10000

Also, it's pretty interesting on the hormone disruption.....there were some studies on hormonal birth control a while back that raised the question and possibility that maybe there were some factors around children's sexuality and other issues that could possibly be attributed to hormonal birth control previously taken by the mother. (And I do emphasize possibly). They were results that just happened to come out of another study or studies. Rather unsurprisingly, they were never funded that I'm aware of. When you combine the powers of the pharmaceutical industry along with the pro-Birth Control lobbies you don't really stand much of a chance if you're proposing hormonal birth control might not be exactly what it's cracked up to be..... but I always found it interesting and don't see why it would be a bad thing to look further into. 

 

Hormone-disrupting chemicals are not related to birth control pills (well, I'm sure some miniscule amount are, but bc pills don't even make the top 10 of endocrine disrupting chemicals found in our environment. HDCs are largely a function of modern life. I don't want to sideline this thread any more, but here is a good, short list of the categories.) There have also been some good books written on this topic. 

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