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PT6A posted:That doesn't really make them trans, that means they change sex in a way that doesn't have a human analogue because our biology doesn't work that way. If anything, the fact that they change sex in a biological fashion makes them closer to... genderfluid and/or nonbinary, than specifically trans? But as we can't understand what a non-human's gender identity might consist of, it's still a fairly nonsensical comparison. Well, I was making an assumption that the sex change is something that is controlled and desired, but either way blame poor media education because Vice among other outlets are cranking out listicles about "trans animals". It's often been a problem I've seen with trans issues because that the media does an absolutely terrible job. Someone in the athletes thread basically wanted some old right-wing canards to be actionable on sight, but the problem is that mainstream media, not just Breitbart, continues to peddle things like "Lia Thomas wasn't talented as a men's swimmer" which aren't true in proper context. And that's going to always cause people who think they're informed and aren't hyperbigots to parrot bigot talking points and means we need to do a lot of educating over and over again.
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Apr 26, 2022 01:51
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Sex change in animals is not unheard of but it's harder to establish gender. And as its socially constructed, I'd imagine youd have to look in fairly advanced species to find gender issues. However, here's a study on some lions. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aje.12360
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Apr 26, 2022 01:52
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Craptacular! posted:That's like asking the difference between a church and a religion. Obviously without religions we wouldn't see anyone building churches, but the fact that churches are being built doesn't prove God's existence. Hmmm, ok. I'm not a big religious person either so I wouldn't call churches evidence of God existing, but I would call them evidence of religion existing. And I'd call religion a real thing, even if I think the thing most religions are all about probably isn't real. This isn't related to the above point but you cited race as something "real" as compared to queer stuff being "faith-based" and I'd recommend you learn more about the science of race (the not-debunked science, I should say lol) because I think it would actually also fall under the category of "faith-based" given your definition. Craptacular! posted:Well, I was making an assumption that the sex change is something that is controlled and desired, but either way blame poor media education because Vice among other outlets are cranking out listicles about "trans animals". It's often been a problem I've seen with trans issues because that the media does an absolutely terrible job. Someone in the athletes thread basically wanted some old right-wing canards to be actionable on sight, but the problem is that mainstream media, not just Breitbart, continues to peddle things like "Lia Thomas wasn't talented as a men's swimmer" which aren't true in proper context. And that's going to always cause people who think they're informed and aren't hyperbigots to parrot bigot talking points and means we need to do a lot of educating over and over again. lmao that is a weird as hell article. sex and gender aren't the same Vice!! re: your point, I missed the feedback thread but imo the best thing someone said in there was that the "learning about trans ppl" threads should be in Ask/Tell, not here in D&D; we are not a subject to be debated but education and better understanding is sorely needed.
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Apr 26, 2022 02:05
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doingitwrong posted:I think you might want to revisit your ideas about where valid ideas or words come from. In general, the academy is not in the business of coining and doling out new words and definitely not in the business of defining and distributing new cultural phenomena. Mostly, when it comes to cultural things and vocabulary, the academy studies and codifies things happening in the world. I admit I'm one of those people who, were I alive in the era before Kinsey, would have likely accepted the conclusion that that I was a mentally broken sociopath due to my sexuality, just because academics told me I was. I understand that science changes, and I really wanted mostly to ask what the state of research is on some of these labels, if there was any done. Explaining my prerogative toward unproven ideas was to contextualize that I was trying to genuinely good faith educate myself here, and not trying to "just ask a question" as a means to abuse people. Hawkperson posted:re: your point, I missed the feedback thread but imo the best thing someone said in there was that the "learning about trans ppl" threads should be in Ask/Tell, not here in D&D; we are not a subject to be debated but education and better understanding is sorely needed. Fair, though I'm done for now and am moving onto reading. I figured D&D was the better outlet to talk about this since it is by nature a little more adversarial. I didn't want to go into a thread that was supposed to be immune to skeptics and challenging notions for the benefit of people's mental health, because I do think such spaces should exist. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 02:06
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Craptacular! posted:I consider myself gay and was supportive of the 2000s LGBT movement, but the whole "destroy the gender binary" aspect that has emerged in the 2010s hasn't really clicked with me. I admit up til now I have been, in my own head but not in public, one of those folks who thinks that because almost nobody saw these labels being used offline for the past thirty years before insular queer Tumblr communities, that they must have been incubated by online sociologists in those communities and have no scientific backing to them, and have been skeptical of it's validity because I didn't want to let touchy-feely Tumblrites define what truth is to me. I have a couple of points to make about this - first, when we're talking about a scientific backing, we should also ask what scientific backing the gender binary has. Sure, looking at people's bodies people's biological properties are generally bimodal and are usually (but also importantly not always) fairly close to two major clusters that you could call male or female. Now I could get into the list of intersex conditions - which is an important topic in itself - but that's not really the point I want to make at the moment. There's also the question of the various things that can be called "gender", e.g. what do people call me, how do I describe myself, what kind of social roles do I fit into - these don't really have a scientific basis. Sure, in the current way of doing them they are often based on a particular field of science, but the choice to make the specific biological question so important that it affects e.g. your pronouns is absolutely a social one. At some point society decided it was so important whether you had a penis or a vagina that it assigned people words to differentiate it when you talk about someone in the third person. We could have decided to give people different pronouns based on whether they're below or over 6 feet, or if they're right or left handed - these could still technically have scientific backing but it would still be completely a cultural decision. With the acceptance of the idea of trans people we can say, actually this societal decision is not working for us, and the trans rights movement is an acknowledgement that as a society we can change this decision and make a society that functions differently. Now there's different levels of this, you have the more "transmedicalist" side which (wrongly, imo) only rejects the idea of gender determined at birth but still requires trans people change their biology to be really considered trans. Then you have the acceptance of solely binary trans identities which still forces the two categories to be the only options but allows moving between them. Then there's the next step, which is to ask, if we can change this societal structure so that gender is no longer rigid, why stick to two boxes that a person must be in? Why not allow people to live outside them? It's not actually a scientific question, but a question of how we want our society to be built, how we want people to be defined and categorised (or not categorised!) So asking for a scientific basis for this is I think the wrong way of going about it. The other point I'd like to make is that if you want a scientific basis I guess the main thing to look at would be studies of the psychological benefit to people being correctly gendered and affirmed in their chosen identity - not sure if there are any studies specifically looking at non-binary people concerning this. But you could also just look at what non-binary people themselves say, which is that being misgendered etc. makes them feel like poo poo, and I don't think there's much cause to question that or any negatives to affirming their identities beyond having to add a few extra options to questionnaires here and there.
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Apr 26, 2022 02:13
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Craptacular! posted:I consider myself gay and was supportive of the 2000s LGBT movement, but the whole "destroy the gender binary" aspect that has emerged in the 2010s hasn't really clicked with me. I admit up til now I have been, in my own head but not in public, one of those folks who thinks that because almost nobody saw these labels being used offline for the past thirty years before insular queer Tumblr communities, that they must have been incubated by online sociologists in those communities and have no scientific backing to them, and have been skeptical of it's validity because I didn't want to let touchy-feely Tumblrites define what truth is to me. Identity is a personal truth. You don't need scientist to tell you how someone would like to be treated. A scientist can tell you that people whose identities are respected are much happier than people whose identities are not. I'm binary trans, and I know quite a few nonbinary people, and while I can't relate directly, the way they talk about their feelings and experience of dysphoria is very close to how I talk about those same things. The only difference is what the end goal is. For me, there's a possibility that I could fit into some preconstructed space in society and blend in. For a nonbinary person, the only way they can have a space is to make one. And, there's one developing, where someone can be a "they/them" third gender, which works for some people, but not all. The only way everyone can do gender in a way that fits them is if we get rid of having predefined "valid" gender slots and just accept everyone as they come.
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Apr 26, 2022 02:33
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The state of research is rapidly changing as are the definitions of what is even being researched. The criteria for Gender Dysphoria, for example, were changed significantly in the DSM-V from the old definitions that were part of Gender Identity Disorder, no longer treating it as a mental illness to be worked against but a source of psychological distress to be treated. Much like the removal of homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973. This means that a lot of the older research is based on definitions of transgender identity that are wholly out of touch with the modern understanding, making it somewhere between difficult and outright intellectually dishonest to try and draw conclusions from them. For an example of the intellectual dishonesty, see Florida's recent one-pager here. In it, they state that social transition and gender-affirming treatment should not be given to children and adolescents based on a 2105 paper referencing studies from decades before that determined 80% of a sample of birth-assigned male children seen for gender identity issues in the late 80's at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto did not still present with them in follow-ups 20 years later. Said study has been criticized for methodological issues given it counts those who did not respond among the 'desisters', and in some cases did not even speak to the patients at all, but rather their parents. The author later wrote a rebuttal to criticism stating that the paper being quoted did not attempt to measure rate of persistence at all. The Child Gender Identity Clinic at CAMH, it must be noted, has since ceased operation. Kenneth Zucker, author of some of the studies referenced by the Florida DH, was a clinician there who made statements about his practice that were decried as amounting to conversion therapy, and was let go and the clinic closed after an external review could not state this was not the case. Another who worked for the clinic was Ray Blanchard, who those interested in trans issues may be familiar with as the primary proponent of the theory of autogynephilia, which has been widely criticized and rejected by WPATH as lacking any empirical evidence. The Human Rights Campaign has a more detailed rebuttal, with reference to studies published in the last few years, here. The American Psychological Association has responded as well, stating: quote:“This memo from the Florida Department of Health distorts the psychological science regarding the treatment of gender non-conforming children. Research into the treatment of gender non-conforming individuals has found that withholding evidence-based treatments can be psychologically damaging, especially to children and youths who are struggling with their gender identity. Rates of self-injury, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts are much higher among gender dysphoric youth, ironically attributed to stress associated with non-affirming approaches to these very real issues.
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Apr 26, 2022 02:44
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I guess the other question in regards to the theory that a lot of adolescents with gender identity issues don't end up transitioning or whatever is: provided that's the case and it's because they are not actually trans or non-binary... what's the harm if they experiment with their gender identity and later decide "nope, not for me, I'm cis!" Presumably they still had some reason for questioning their gender identity; if it's not 100% permanent all the time, is that a reason to be concerned? It's not like minors are getting surgery or anything permanent.
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Apr 26, 2022 02:51
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Given the recent discourse surrounding Madison Cawthorn; specifically, the photos of him wearing "women's lingerie", I'm curious where the winds are blowing with respect to crossdressing from a trans and/or queer perspective. For the record, I don't think Madison Cawthorn is a crossdresser, and if I were to guess, he probably views the "controversial" photo as part of an ironic joke at the expense of queer people in general. Specifically, where does crossdressing fit with regards to trans identity, or queerness in general? To clarify, I think (and could be totally wrong) there are several different "forms" of crossdressing, which each have their own intersections with gender and sexual identity. I'm kind of just brainstorming here, so I don't mean for this to be a wholly inclusive list, just how I've processed it in my own head: 1.) Crossdressing exclusively as a sexual fetish or hobby. I (again, maybe wrongly) mostly associate this with cisgender, heterosexual men. 2.) Drag, which to my knowledge, is more-or-less a completely separate subculture; one which I tend to associate with cisgender (or, I suppose, transmasculine), homosexual men, and don't think necessarily falls into the "trans" category. 3.) Crossdressing as a gender identity. https://hannahmcknight.org/about/ is an example of someone I associate with this, and she identifies as a trans woman, despite not planning to medically transition in any way. So, to be overly specific, when I think of "crossdressing" in the context of this post, I'm really only addressing #3. My understanding is that this is still fairly controversial in the trans community. I feel pretty confident that transmedicalists, who believe gender dysphoria and ultimately medical transition are prerequisites to being considered "trans", wouldn't consider crossdressing to be on the trans spectrum. However, I think they are pretty well on the fringe extremes of the trans community, so I'm much more interested in the more moderate viewpoints. I can completely understand how trans women could see crossdressing as inauthentic or even "closeted". If you can literally "take off" your identity and regain the privilege of being a cisgender man, that takes away a lot of the social and cultural risk associated with being trans. On the other hand, to me, it seems difficult to reconcile both gender and sexuality being a varied spectrum with invalidating anyone's identity, even if it's an "impermanent" one. I'm not sure there's a "right" answer; cisgender men don't exactly have a flawless record when it comes to encroaching into minority spaces, so I can certainly understand any amount of defensiveness on the part of trans women to accept crossdressers as part of their identity. In case there wasn't enough projection in this post, I've been struggling with my own identity for the last couple years, after having spent approximately zero time thinking about it for the preceding 3 decades. forbidden dialectics fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 02:52
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forbidden dialectics posted:2.) Drag, which to my knowledge, is more-or-less a completely separate subculture; one which I tend to associate with cisgender (or, I suppose, transmasculine), homosexual men, and don't think necessarily falls into the "trans" category. Drag is a performance art form that exaggerates, subverts, or satirizes gender norms and identities (just my personal definition) and there's always been a lot of trans and nonbinary performers. There are also drag kings. Cawthorn was definitely not doing drag. imo just being a drunk edgelord.
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Apr 26, 2022 03:07
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forbidden dialectics posted:Specifically, where does crossdressing fit with regards to trans identity, or queerness in general? forbidden dialectics posted:For the record, I don't think Madison Cawthorn is a crossdresser, and if I were to guess, he probably views the "controversial" photo as part of an ironic joke at the expense of queer people in general. I know literally nothing about Madison Cawthorn though so I cannot speak to any particulars.
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Apr 26, 2022 03:08
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Craptacular! posted:I consider myself gay and was supportive of the 2000s LGBT movement, but the whole "destroy the gender binary" aspect that has emerged in the 2010s hasn't really clicked with me. I admit up til now I have been, in my own head but not in public, one of those folks who thinks that because almost nobody saw these labels being used offline for the past thirty years before insular queer Tumblr communities, that they must have been incubated by online sociologists in those communities and have no scientific backing to them, and have been skeptical of it's validity because I didn't want to let touchy-feely Tumblrites define what truth is to me. --Sexual characteristics are indeed facts which I think makes pivoting to conversations of animals wrongheaded. Nobody is questioning the reality of people's bodies, just how we express the meaning behind those realities both personally and in a broader sense. But more broadly, are there animals that have circumcisions? Are there animals that cover their breasts? Are there animals that cut their hair and wear wigs when they mate? Even if we bought into the gender binary, human beings are unique. We do things to express being male and being female that are not biological imperatives, but develop and exist within cultures to express concepts of gender. So, while there are animals with fluid sexual characteristics, atypical biological roles, or more than two sexes, it's a bit irrelevant. Even if all animals were genuinely 100% male and female and had boring missionary sex to procreate, we know that even outside of queer people, humans are different in terms of their relationship to their sexual characteristics. All animals have some relationship to sex, just like all animals eat and die. But human beings create social constructs and identity and make choices in how we interpret and interact with these facts of life in a way our fellow animals for the most part, do not do. --To clarify with the gender binary, the goal is not to destroy the concept of men and women--well at least I think for most people. Pragmatically, I think if you run the simulation of mankind a million times, penises and vaginas are different. We probably always end up with this key dichotomy of male and female and masculine and feminine. But this isn't a discussion of sexual characteristics, but gender identity and gender expression. When you create a strict binary you exclude people who for biological reasons or identity reasons do not cleanly fit into those buckets, but for even with the people who do identify within the binary or are cis, you often generate expectations of what it means to be part of their gender without essentialism. The goal of moving beyond the gender binary is for people to feel free to identify and express themselves in the way that best fits them and to not mistake a culturally created construct as a given. And it's not a super-online idea. It's literally the Supreme Court's basis of striking down the gay marriage bans. Justice Kennedy posted:The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.
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Apr 26, 2022 03:17
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Angepain posted:At some point society decided it was so important whether you had a penis or a vagina that it assigned people words to differentiate it when you talk about someone in the third person. We could have decided to give people different pronouns based on whether they're below or over 6 feet, or if they're right or left handed - these could still technically have scientific backing but it would still be completely a cultural decision. I feel like gender has served double roles, initially as a classification system for mating it has ballooned into a cultural thing that was supposed to determine things as arbitrary and personal as which color is your favorite. I can presuppose that the dumbass cultural significance of gender in ways like "has a vagina, therefore pink dress and Barbie" has so distorted gender as a concept that it has almost completely unmoored it from chromosomes and sex organs. The problem here is sexual orientation. How the gently caress do we square the people we select for intercourse when descriptors have lost their relevancy? I have sometimes heard the idea of "two sexes, many genders" but how that interacts with what people are attracted to is harder to classify. The quick answer, outlined in OP seems to be "labels are just labels", and to create other labels based on factors like intelligence. I guess on some level that worries because I have for years been arguing with the right that there is an actual physiological happening somewhere between genetics and endocrinology that makes people that influences sexuality. "Labels are just labels" is definitely freeing but seems to play into the hands of the people who call anything other than "man/penis + woman/vagina" a sign of moral decline and degeneracy that I wasted so much oxygen on twenty years ago, so stuff like furries and the intelligent-sexual people mentioned on the first page feels to me more like a kink or fetish that is independent yet compatible with sexuality. You can exclusively like furries with high IQs that identify as transwomen, if you like. It's almost like we need to turn the Kinsey scale from a linear 1-10 thing into a Political Compass meme wherein sex characteristics and gender identity are charted on an axis. EDIT: If there are sapiosexuals, I hope they keep their community clean because man does that sound like an easy avenue for racists to slide in their lovely theories. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 03:25
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PT6A posted:Also: if you want to be a part of the club, but you don't really fit in properly, there's a great role for you: ally! What is the number 2 in that acronym meant to represent? Sorry if this is a dumb question.
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Apr 26, 2022 03:32
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Casual Male XL Fan posted:What is the number 2 in that acronym meant to represent? Sorry if this is a dumb question. I wasn't sure myself, but it looks like it's 2S together, not just 2. Meant to connote being two-spirited, which is outside of my knowledge sphere personally!
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Apr 26, 2022 03:34
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Casual Male XL Fan posted:What is the number 2 in that acronym meant to represent? Sorry if this is a dumb question. 2S is two spirit e: it's a sort of third gender in many indigenous American cultures. Both male and female at the same time. I have a friend who identifies as two spirit and at least in the local culture there's a lot of spiritual implications to that-- two-spirits have a special connection to the spirit world and are considered sacred. They have some special ceremonial roles. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 03:34
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Craptacular! posted:I feel like gender has served double roles, initially as a classification system for mating it has ballooned into a cultural thing that was supposed to determine things as arbitrary and personal as which color is your favorite. I can presuppose that the dumbass cultural significance of gender in ways like "has a vagina, therefore pink dress and Barbie" has so distorted gender as a concept that it has almost completely unmoored it from chromosomes and sex organs. Is it? we're still in a situation where half the population does more than half the work relating to the reproduction of labor, which as we know involves sex organs amongst many other things. So it seems to me like gender as a concept is still successfully doing what it was developed to do.
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Apr 26, 2022 03:44
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Two Spirit is not a specific identity, but an umbrella term for minority genders in native american cultures, which each may have their own names. It exists to replace the slur that was previously used. I think once you get into talking about specific cultural practices or understandings of gender, you should probably dial in what you're talking about and not paint with such a broad brush.
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Apr 26, 2022 03:54
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To expand on two-spirits a little, keeping in mind this is specific to the indigenous peoples in my area and there are hundreds of nations in the Americas- In traditional society, male and female gender roles were quite strictly defined. Women owned the home and all property other than horses and weapons. Women were in charge of domestic affairs as well as (non-war) political decisions. Men were expected to learn to hunt and fight and owned only their clothing, weapons, and horse. Even though gender roles were rather rigid, they need not match your assigned sex at birth. Assigned male at birth but want to live as a woman? Cool no prob, you're a woman, you dress as a woman, and you perform a woman's roles in the family and society. Gender roles were also central in ceremony and spirituality. For example, men led public prayers. Women were water and fire-keepers, responsible for maintaining fresh water supplies and keeping the camp's flame burning as well as the ceremonies associated with that. Women also had control over their fertility and family planning. Two-spirited individuals were both male and female, sort of a liminal third gender. They were considered sacred and existed outside the binary male/female gender roles. They performed some ceremonies that men and women could not. edit: Dr. Stab posted:Two Spirit is not a specific identity, but an umbrella term for minority genders in native american cultures, which each may have their own names. It exists to replace the slur that was previously used. yeah I'm avoiding naming the culture I'm describing as I'd rather not doxx myself more than necessary. Some of what I mention above will be shared with other tribal nations and there are details I'm omitting-- there are speciifc words for men who live as women and such but again I'd like to avoid getting that specific. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 03:58
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War and Pieces posted:Is it? we're still in a situation where half the population does more than half the work relating to the reproduction of labor, which as we know involves sex organs amongst many other things. So it seems to me like gender as a concept is still successfully doing what it was developed to do. I'm not a transwoman, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they're expected to work even harder than the people around them like many ciswomen are.
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Apr 26, 2022 04:01
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forbidden dialectics posted:Given the recent discourse surrounding Madison Cawthorn; specifically, the photos of him wearing "women's lingerie", I'm curious where the winds are blowing with respect to crossdressing from a trans and/or queer perspective. For the record, I don't think Madison Cawthorn is a crossdresser, and if I were to guess, he probably views the "controversial" photo as part of an ironic joke at the expense of queer people in general. There's a term called "gender nonconforming" or GNC that I think would be really helpful down this line. As someone who crossdresses themselves, stopping at "kink or hobby" seems a bit too early while going to "somewhere in the space of being trans" seems like stepping into a region that's not really me. That's definitely not to undersell the kink aspect of things, because there's a validity there, but it goes deeper than that? I feel like GNC as an identity term is helpful down that front as a way to sorta provide a fourth option there. I'm not going to claim that wanting to wear dresses is my gender identity, but it's a part of me and my queerness, y'know? Separate category. This is, of course, sorta focused down on my experience and isn't trying to be a singular statement on things, just a personal sorta lens on this stuff.
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Apr 26, 2022 04:15
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Dr. Stab posted:Two Spirit is not a specific identity, but an umbrella term for minority genders in native american cultures, which each may have their own names. It exists to replace the slur that was previously used. Yeah, I don't personally know much about those specific cultural practices beyond "I have heard people refer to themselves as two-spirited and they consider it part of the wider LGBTQ+ community." I like to include it because it's a reminder that, no, the idea of gender that exists outside the binary is not actually a new concept by any means, and the idea that it is gets into the unpleasant territory of considering Western culture to be some sort of neutral default setting. Plenty of cultures have their own conceptions of gender, and have had for a long time. The fact that Western culture held, for a long time, that you're either a man or a woman and it's inextricably tied to what genitals you have at birth, is one cultural construction of gender, but it's by no means the only one that's existed historically.
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Apr 26, 2022 04:16
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Craptacular! posted:I feel like gender has served double roles, initially as a classification system for mating it has ballooned into a cultural thing that was supposed to determine things as arbitrary and personal as which color is your favorite. I can presuppose that the dumbass cultural significance of gender in ways like "has a vagina, therefore pink dress and Barbie" has so distorted gender as a concept that it has almost completely unmoored it from chromosomes and sex organs. Secondly, the existence of trans people hasn't made descriptors loss their relevancy, their still extremely useful. Like if a cis heterosexual person is attracted to a trans person they are still a cis heterosexual person. Cis heterosexual people are still clearly attracted to some trans people when they see them, right, its just that for some of them that attraction fades when they learn the other person is trans. Like, if a cis heterosexual dude says he's only attracted to tall women, that doesn't mean that the descriptor "heterosexual" has lost all meaning. Thirdly, to bold, the correct terminology your looking for is just trans women. "identify as" is redundant, it would be like saying that Bill Clinton "identifies as a cis man". Unfortunately transphobes love weaponizing language, and that very easy mistaken phrasing is something they deliberately write and say to imply that the way that trans women are women is lesser, and that trans women aren't women the way cis women are women. So I'd recommend been careful and just using "trans women" instead of "transwomen" or "identifies as a trans women". It fully loving sucks that language is getting weaponized like this. Pepe the frog was cool and good before Nazi's claimed it, and now I can't use it without strangers in the discord server anxiously making sure they don't have any doxxable information in the server. Like I don't want to angrily come down on your usage here, more the opposite; the correct language is a cool and useful tool that you'll want to use, because it means that trans people in the room don't have to start running defensive calculus, and it means that social spaces you build shine a spotlight on any nazi's that come in.
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Apr 26, 2022 04:17
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Craptacular! posted:It's almost like we need to turn the Kinsey scale from a linear 1-10 thing into a Political Compass meme wherein sex characteristics and gender identity are charted on an axis. The Kinsey scale is 75 years old and further elaboration on it has been ongoing. Adding an X and Y axis to denote a scale between asexuality (attraction to no partners) and pansexuality (attraction to all partners regardless of gender expression) was proposed as early as 1980. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 04:19
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PT6A posted:The fact that Western culture held, for a long time, that you're either a man or a woman and it's inextricably tied to what genitals you have at birth, is one cultural construction of gender, but it's by no means the only one that's existed historically. Forums poster HEY GUNS studies the Thirty Year's War and is fond of the stories of men assigned female at birth but who lived and fought as male soldiers. Which I mention because apparently the construction of gender in Europe in that time was there was actually only one gender and that was male. Women were merely imperfect/unfinished men! edit: clarification, I messaged him. There's a late classical idea (see writings from Laqueur) that there is one sex and two genders. Male is the only sex, women are imperfect men. But there were strong gender roles and you could be killed for violating them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalina_de_Erauso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleno_de_C%C3%A9spedes Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 04:23
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Rob Filter posted:Secondly, the existence of trans people hasn't made descriptors loss their relevancy, their still extremely useful. Like if a cis heterosexual person is attracted to a trans person they are still a cis heterosexual person. Cis heterosexual people are still clearly attracted to some trans people when they see them, right, its just that for some of them that attraction fades when they learn the other person is trans. Like, if a cis heterosexual dude says he's only attracted to tall women, that doesn't mean that the descriptor "heterosexual" has lost all meaning. Okay, so stupid question and forgive my ignorance, but can’t sexual orientation be based upon sex? Or are you saying this might hold true since it can be based upon sex or gender? Kalit fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 04:32
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Fritz the Horse posted:Forums poster HEY GUNS studies the Thirty Year's War and is fond of the stories of men assigned female at birth but who lived and fought as male soldiers. Which I mention because apparently the construction of gender in Europe in that time was there was actually only one gender and that was male. Women were merely imperfect/unfinished men! In history, it's often hard to distinguish between "trans man" and "woman who disguises as a man to fight in the war." I think there's good reason for caution in ascribing these things. But also, if a guy lives as a man his whole life, even into retirement or after getting outed, you have to think there's something more to it than just getting a job. Historians seem to have such a high standard for thinking someone is probably trans,and it's super frustrating. Also, since you bring up classical notions of gender, Galen believed that a vagina was an inverted penis. Which was wrong at the time, but now, for some people, it's right.
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Apr 26, 2022 04:35
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Kalit posted:Okay, so stupid question and forgive my ignorance, but can’t sexual orientation be based upon sex? Or are you saying it can be based upon sex or gender? I mean, sexual attraction can be based on pretty much everything, more than just gender. People have sexual preferences. Their are people who are only attracted to women with long hair, people who are only attracted to men with beards, etc. How genitalia preferences and transphobia interlink are a complicated topic I don't feel capable speaking about with the sophistication it deserves. That said, I think its probably better to toss genitalia preferences (and secondary sexual characteristics preferences) into the syntactic bucket of "liking beards / liking long hair" VS the syntactic bucket of "gender attraction".
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Apr 26, 2022 04:44
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Kalit posted:Okay, so stupid question and forgive my ignorance, but can’t sexual orientation be based upon sex? Or are you saying it can be based upon sex or gender? Sex and gender are not wholly distinct classifications. Like, whether someone looks like female to you is not just based on the shape of their body, but also their hairstyle and what they're wearing. A straight man is someone who is attracted to people they perceive as female. Like, I don't know any straight guys who are attracted to trans men. Because if they look at someone and see a man, they won't be attracted, because they're straight. And that doesn't change if they learn that this man has or has once had a vagina.
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Apr 26, 2022 04:46
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Kalit posted:Okay, so stupid question and forgive my ignorance, but can’t sexual orientation be based upon sex? Or are you saying this might hold true since it can be based upon sex or gender? The way I would look at it is that sex (as in, physical sexual features) as far as attraction goes, count as an element of gender performance. Which is consistent with why people often want to change their physical features to match their gender, along with dressing differently, speaking differently, adopting different behaviours etc. If those are all part of the performance for self actualization reasons, then it would make sense that they are also part of the performance that other people would be attracted to. And as with all other parts of gender there should be no reason why you can't mix and match as you like, a gay man is not less of a man if he presents more feminine, lesbians aren't men if they dress butch, so similarly I don't think what sex bits you have dictates it either, though people can obviously have preferences both for themselves and in what features they are attracted to. At the moment we still live in a society where the main choices are either man or woman, those are two somewhat distinct (though often very difficult to draw the borders of) groups of signifiers, including a lot of behaviours and physical features, that a lot of people clearly want to belong to and perform, and also that a lot of people are specifically attracted to. But I would like to think that over time, if we take apart the overt social pressures to fit into one of those groups, this might change. It seems hard to me to imagine that everyone on earth automatically and only fits into one of those two groups. So in the future it might be possible that gay and straight lose meaning, or at least their prominence. But at the moment I don't think it's the case. Also I would suggest that if those sexualities did lose their meaning then so what? Does it need a "scientific backing"? Surely you, as a human being, can just like who you like, you don't need some guy in a labcoat looking over your shoulder going "hmm yes my genderometer classifies this person as a man therefore you are still gay" who cares? If you look at someone and you think they are beautiful then that's IMO just a good thing, your day is presumably improved by that experience, does it need to mean any more than that? Does it need to fit into a previously established pattern or you're not allowed to find someone attractive? The "scientific" thing, IMO, is that lots of people find other people attractive, sometimes this follows particular patterns and sometimes the patterns correspond to pre-established gender binaries, but it is not that they correspond to those binaries that makes the attraction somehow "legitimate" it's that people experience it. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 05:04
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Rob Filter posted:Thirdly, to bold, the correct terminology your looking for is just trans women. "identify as" is redundant, it would be like saying that Bill Clinton "identifies as a cis man". Unfortunately transphobes love weaponizing language, and that very easy mistaken phrasing is something they deliberately write and say to imply that the way that trans women are women is lesser, and that trans women aren't women the way cis women are women. So I'd recommend been careful and just using "trans women" instead of "transwomen" or "identifies as a trans women". And then I've seen people who represent loud and proud. The people who put the trans flag emoji in their Twitter name so that people who don't even know them very well can get an idea of how frequently they encounter transpeople in a community, a fandom, etc. If you don't know any in your personal IRL circle, that kind of representation de-other'izes and makes you realize that when you're talking about their rights that you're talking about people you've probably already interacted with. Both are valid, but when I say someone "identifies as" I meant the latter kind. And agreed on Pepe, I only stopped eyebrow-raising at everyone using him a couple months ago. A couple years ago I was saying things like "imagine it's 2020 and you still think Pepe is funny" but the youth aren't gonna listen to my fossilized rear end. EDIT: De-pluralized my verbage after I realized I was going to talk about someone specific in a way that wouldn't be too personal. Not trying to dehumanize anyone with inappropriate 'they's. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 05:46
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Craptacular! posted:I've used the term identifies as because in my experience, not all transpeople are happy being public about being trans. My only understanding of this comes from a few message boards, some of which are undeniably toxic, as well as certain YouTubers who are also not perfect representatives for the entire community, but I've met someone who wish they would just be identified as a ciswoman everywhere she is. While nobody wants to be discriminated against, she won't volunteer that she is trans except to close friends or in spaces where she can't be personally identified. Ah I see, if you want to talk about people who are in the closet VS people who are out, you can just those as adjectives. e.g. "openly trans women", "closeted trans women". It'll get across your meaning far more clearly.
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Apr 26, 2022 05:53
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Yeah. That is definitely not the context 'identifies as' is used in normally. It is a matter of self-definition, not outward announcement. It's also often twisted by transphobes, TERFs especially, as a way to otherise trans people. Constantly using 'x identifies as a woman' to imply 'but is not', especially by "jokes" like 'I identify as an attack helicopter', to quote one of the most common angles of this bullshit.
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Apr 26, 2022 05:59
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Craptacular! posted:I'm not a transwoman, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they're expected to work even harder than the people around them like many ciswomen are. They can expect all they want but I had time to internalize male laziness so joke's on them! (trans woman and cis woman are two words btw)
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Apr 26, 2022 07:18
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I had thought that the closet and "coming out" had been outdated over the years. Since I have seen "identifies as" used in places that are not supposed to be transphobic, I thought it was the new words for public representation.Rob Filter posted:How genitalia preferences and transphobia interlink are a complicated topic I don't feel capable speaking about with the sophistication it deserves. That said, I think its probably better to toss genitalia preferences (and secondary sexual characteristics preferences) into the syntactic bucket of "liking beards / liking long hair" VS the syntactic bucket of "gender attraction". I think we also need to realize that those buckets fall into whole romantic/sexuality dynamic, where you may have romantic preferences for a certain type of person but no sexual preference or vice versa. The only other gay guy in my classes would come out to me as MtF, but it didn't change anything about us except that all of that "if you guys are together so much why don't you become boyfriends" prodding from other people stopped hanging over our heads. Edit: removed some stuff that should have had a warning Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 08:25
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Craptacular! posted:I had thought that the closet and "coming out" had been outdated over the years. Since I have seen "identifies as" used in places that are not supposed to be transphobic, I thought it was the new words for public representation. So, the gender you are is the gender you identify as, and this is true for everyone both cis and trans. It's entirely accurate to say that a trans woman identifies as a woman, the same way its accurate to say that a cis woman identifies as a woman. Its a truism to say that women identify as women. But in common parlance, its incredibly common for transphobes to use "identifies as a trans woman" when talking about trans woman, and "is a woman" when talking about cis woman. If someone used "identifies as a trans woman" to describe trans women, and then later used the short version "is a woman / is a cis woman" for cis woman, they'd raise eyebrows. I'm honestly uncertain on best form, and would welcome other posters input on places where that terminology is / isn't appropriate.
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Apr 26, 2022 08:50
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Craptacular! posted:The problem here is sexual orientation. How the gently caress do we square the people we select for intercourse when descriptors have lost their relevancy? I have sometimes heard the idea of "two sexes, many genders" but how that interacts with what people are attracted to is harder to classify. The quick answer, outlined in OP seems to be "labels are just labels", and to create other labels based on factors like intelligence. I guess on some level that worries because I have for years been arguing with the right that there is an actual physiological happening somewhere between genetics and endocrinology that makes people that influences sexuality. "Labels are just labels" is definitely freeing but seems to play into the hands of the people who call anything other than "man/penis + woman/vagina" a sign of moral decline and degeneracy that I wasted so much oxygen on twenty years ago, so stuff like furries and the intelligent-sexual people mentioned on the first page feels to me more like a kink or fetish that is independent yet compatible with sexuality. You can exclusively like furries with high IQs that identify as transwomen, if you like. So first off I'll say I don't think sapiosexuals are a particularly significant movement, they just get a lot of attention because it seems wacky to people, I don't think it's particularly necessary to think too much about at this point. "Labels are just labels" doesn't mean we need to abandon the idea of "a gay man" or "a lesbian" or something like that, it just means that their use can expand a bit and be a bit less rigid. There is no simple binary way to define a "man" or "woman" that is meaningful and applies to all people, so these terms already have a bit of fluidity on the edges. This also doesn't mean that we have to abandon the idea that sexuality is physiological, or the idea that it's not a choice. There is still some unknown process in the formation of the brain that makes it generally fancy some kinds of people but not other kinds, and there seems to be several big clusters of people who can be broadly categorised as "heterosexual" and "homosexual" and "bisexual" and other things, but we don't have to take that categorisation as a rigid discrete system that applies to all people in the same way. Additionally, the function in your brain that takes in what you know about a person and spits out how much you are attracted to them is an unknown, complex system that probably takes in all sorts of variables to come to a conclusion - your brain doesn't have a chromosome detector it uses to directly read other people's genome. The Kinsey scale was always a simplification of that process. This doesn't mean you can't go around saying "i'm attracted to men" or that it isn't ever useful to talk about "men" or "gay men" (and it doesn't mean you have to be attracted to everyone who calls themselves a man, either). Also I would question whether we should use "how will right wing chuds react" as a standard for how we should think of ourselves. To them we'll always be freaks, as that ezra furman song said
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Apr 26, 2022 14:16
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Craptacular! posted:The problem here is sexual orientation. How the gently caress do we square the people we select for intercourse when descriptors have lost their relevancy? The descriptors have not lost their relevancy. The idea that the borders of these descriptors can be cleanly drawn is a misunderstanding of what descriptors do. The idea that the borders must be cleanly drawn and vigorously enforced is where the problems and oppressions lie.
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Apr 26, 2022 14:37
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Angepain posted:So first off I'll say I don't think sapiosexuals are a particularly significant movement, they just get a lot of attention because it seems wacky to people, I don't think it's particularly necessary to think too much about at this point. I think what makes things complicated is that the base sexuality is only the initial layer of attraction, but people do have the control to add filters based both on rational priorities and irrational biases and how they choose to identify can be affected by these filters. You can end up with i.e. a woman who finds men and women attractive but focuses on forming relationships with women because she is more comfortable dating them and feels like the lesbian label suits her more so than the bisexual label. But on a more negative note that same woman can impose another filter and refuse to date trans women on the bigoted basis that she believes that they are men. Not sure if I'm explaining my thought process well
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Apr 26, 2022 14:49
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As An Bisexual I would strongly recommend, if possible, letting go of the desire to treat sexuality like xbox achievements, you don't get anything for doing the whole run on one attraction category and nobody's gonna take your sex% speedrun down if you find yourself attracted to someone that doesn't fit into your previous pattern. Genuinely just like whoever you feel attracted to, and don't stress about what it means for your categorization or how others will categorize you, they should help you understand yourself and if they start just making you anxious then they're bad categories, living without that stress is so much easier. And definitely don't go around worrying if it's unscientific for you to fancy someone. You don't need to go to the post office to have your scientific boner license updated. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 26, 2022 16:16
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