8 Bit Philosophy: Is Gender Real?

[FalloutJack]

Foip

Oh, I am referencing your logic. To take from you, I don't need you to believe that I'm god, under the rules of your line of thinking. Your way dictates that the assumption of what you think of the world and God doesn't matter, so I can be a cosmic diety and make whatever I want be true because I'm a cosmic diety. Your own assumptions get turned on their head because I have that power. Up becomes down, black becomes white, and a Bob Dylan becomes a good singer, all because of a little argument over genetalia. You want there to be no line, no difference, when there is one. When there has always been one and there always will be one. All this effort and you won't be making any headway because it just isn't true. It does not follow and you haven't reliably made it follow. It's as plain as the nose on your face. And if you start arguing with me about noses too, I will be in my right to take none of this seriously anymore.

 

[Terminal Blue]

The only difference between Reimer and an intersex person is that his genitalia was not ambiguous at birth.

No. The difference between Reimer and an intersexed person is that only one of them is David Reimer.

If I were to take this argument and apply it to neurology, I would be telling you that because all (or almost all) human brains possess the same basic structure and are made of the same tissues, then it's impossible for any differences between human beings to be the result of neurology, and you'd be laughing at me for making a stupid argument.

If what you proposed was true, you'd see all intersex people to experience gender dysphoria, which simply doesn't happen.

I didn't propose that anything was true. I pointed out the problem of taking a single isolated example of an extremely abnormal upbringing as an example of a universal truth about human existence. Your argument has been to claim that all cases of intersexuality or ambiguous genitalia are actually exactly the same and that, despite the fact that you've never actually disputed that many people with ambiguous genitalia do experience issues with establishing a stable identity, I must somehow be wrong to doubt the absolute secure conviction that anything besides neurology could possibly have influenced this case.

You've taken an initial argument which was negative, which was stating a disbelief or skepticism over whether something is the case, and somehow transformed it into a positive truth claim. I've gone over my posts and I'm trying to see where I might have given that impression and beyond simply mentioning the extreme abnormality of Reimer's upbringing, which I admit was probably unnecessary to make the argument, I don't really see where I've done so.

The difference between intersex people if that people question their gender identity, whereas somebody born with a penis has a 99.7% chance of growing up to be a cisgender man.

Right, and as you've pointed out yourself not all intersexed people respond in the same way. That's a strange feature of human beings, that their response to events around them are not always predictable. Biologically as well as socially, people are never completely the same..

Aye. [http://aebrain.blogspot.com/p/transsexual-and-intersex-gender-identity.html]

Arranged in a list like that it's perhaps not very obvious.. but I can't find a single article there which actually supports the findings of one of the others.. In fact, several are outright contradictory.

I'm not going to claim that any of this information is necessarily untrue, but I'm not seeing anything which challenges the perception I've acquired from studying and working in the field of gender the past few years. A lot of theories, a lot of ideas, a lot of speculation, a few interesting and very hyped studies.. not much consensus, not much repetition, not much consistency.

I tend to go on the defensive during these arguments, so let me step down from a wrongful impression I may have given of myself at this point. Would any of these results, as individual results, actually surprise me if they were true and it turned out they could be reliably repeated? Not really.. I think there are still enormous holes in the idea of hormones encoding cognitive information, particularly since a lot of the information we're talking about is relatively abstract.. a newborn child can't distinguish a penis from the wall, and yet somehow it's meant to be innately "hardwired" to believe that it's meant to have one? Literally does not compute.. But, fundamentally, if that's the way it is then that's the way it is.

But let me be really speculative here and assume that gender identity is somehow conditioned by these neurological differences. That still would not mean that gender identity, much less gender itself, simply was those differences. In my work with pride and in LGBT activism, I've met plenty of trans people who lived much of their lives, sometimes even most of their lives, in total unawareness of the fact that they were "really" trans. Across cultures and time periods, we find vast differences not simply in gender roles, but in the basic conceptualization of gender itself. If there are physical differences which "predispose" gender, then those differences must be subtle enough to accomodate the fact that the expression of those differences ultimately manifests as fluid, complex and, when examined across a diversity of cultures and time periods, actually far less homogeneous than the "born this way" interpretation currently favored by a regrettably large and vocal section of the LGBT community would suggest.

Or to put it very bluntly, what can "biology" possibly mean if a "biologically" female person can somehow go the vast majority of their lives without ever noticing or considering that they're female.

Yes, your implication that it was gender dysphoria, not gender identity.

I disagree that that was my implication and I'm not sure how you got that impression.

Jacques Lacan, who was one of Butler's biggest influences, suggested that preserving a stable sense of self requires us to reject the possibility of alternatives. To be male, we have to reject or cut out the possibility of us ever being female. This serves to conceal from ourselves the actual instability of our own identities by dodging any difficult epistemological questions about how we come to know our own identities in the first place, about how we actually arrive at the point of looking in the mirror and saying "I'm a man" or "I'm a woman".

That's not really a description of dysphoria, is it? In fact, i don't think I've mentioned dysphoria.

Two separate things. You proposed that being cisgender leaves people without an identity.

I don't believe I mentioned cisgender or transgender at all, and my argument (which is simply borrowed from Lacan) was a) that all (interior) identities are constructed through the rejection of the potentiality of alternatives and b) that this process is to some degree inescapable.

Which were being used to explain why Reimar experienced gender dysphoria.

Except that, again, I didn't mention dysphoria at all, and the paragraph you keep quoting isn't about him.

I'm theorizing (very speculatively I'll admit) that the commitment to reading cases like Reimer in terms of "they tried to brainwash him to be a girl but somehow his genes won out which shows how you can't fight the power of nature" is ultimately a product of the impulse to protect identities upon which we, the audience (for want of a better word) rely. Asserting that identity is "natural" and unchangable serves ultimately to banish the possibility of ever not being whatever a person thinks they are. If a cisgendered man is committed to the idea of being a man, then declaring that it would be impossible for them to ever be a woman because being a man is stable, fixed, eternal and "hardwired" into the brain serves to ameliorate that fear.

It's empty speculation and perhaps I shouldn't have indulged it, but I am constantly dumbfounded by just how irrationally willing are people to believe in the most tenuous or internally contradictory thread of logic which might suggest some "biological" cause to identity.

Semantics overlooking the point, let alone actually negating the point. Our identity is an emergence of, among other things, the physical properties of our brain.

Ultimately, yes.. but only in the sense that the absence of a brain would make cognition impossible. The physical properties of the brain include it's suitability to its role in cognition, and consequentially its extreme complexity, mutability and chaotic interaction with the environment.

When I say chaotic, I don't exclude the possibility that in principle the cognitive workings of the brain can be predicted since they are the product of physical laws, but the scale of the brain's operation means its actually kind of useless to equate broad structural features with the actual process of cognition. An MRI scan can see the structure of someone's brain in amazing detail, but it can't guess what they're thinking.

You said how the participants identified was meaningless.

No. I said it would be meaningless if gender was actually a purely biological phenomenon.

Your trying to dismiss the science on a vague notion that its unscientific and the scientists are using their own biases to identify the subjects rather than the fact that its the self-identification of the subjects that the scientists are going by.

I'm not. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that studies are "scientific", I'm just saying that you have this whole body of research where the sample is selected based on a social category, and yet that research being used in this thread to conclude that the phenomena under investigation is not social at all. If it's not, why would you select the sample based on a social judgement?

I mean, the answer might be "because it's easier" or "because it's the only workable solution", and that's fine. But shouldn't the conclusion you draw be limited to the scope of the sample, rather than extended into a general rule about reality which isn't actually in evidence?

 

[Terminal Blue]

Oh, I am referencing your logic.

Err.. No, you still aren't.

Your way dictates that the assumption of what you think of the world and God doesn't matter,

Right. But it also dictates that your assumption of what you think of the world and God doesn't matter. If you're going to try and parody my logic, then at least start from the standpoint of my logic.

Of course, "doesn't matter" is entirely your phrasing and not something I've ever suggested. How can we be sure that nothing matters if we can't make assumptions about reality? That is why we need to actually inquire into the reality of things, rather than randomly declaring that things are like this because they just are.. Being skeptical of knowledge does not mean we can dodge the responsibility to knowledge, political as that responsibility may be.

That's the ridiculous irony of you thinking this is a parody of my argument, because it's functionally identical to what you were saying before, just with "gender is real" replacing "I am God".

You probably think this is annoying to me. It isn't, it's actually hilariously funny. Because even when you try to be deadly serious, you're still just making ridiculous grandiose statements about your own ability to know the truth and how I need to submit to your almighty knowledge of reality. Where does that knowledge come from? Oh right.. you just know, you just assume, you just think, it's obvious, it's common sense, it's facts. It's like the nose on your face.

You aren't giving me reasons to believe you, you're trying to command me not to question and then throwing out this little joke about God to try and illustrate the supposedly dire consequences of me not believing you. Sorry, but the potential loss of objective value doesn't frighten me as much as it seems to frighten you. I'm capable of existing in a reality without the fixity of gender just as I'm capable of existing in a world without God. If that's what you're counting on to frighten me into obedience, it's not working.

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

Being in denial of everything doesn't get you points in discussion here. IT IS your argument. You're trying to intimidate me and everyone else into your viewpoint on the basis of nothing. You're fighting like hell to tread water and you're not making any headway because what you're saying has no impact on the discussion. We're able to bat it away with "There's no reason for why that should be.". You're missing the object lesson, and the irony. Actually, double irony, now. I dunno who you're thinking of proving all this to. The subject alone is dubious, as is, and I'm still waiting on something more than telling me everything I know is wrong and trying to instigate me. I think you should start over, fresh start, forget the character assassination, and give me a logical standpoint that doesn't have to go assuming that what we know doesn't matter or that it's an illusion or something. Descartes already handled that part of the work. We don't have to second-guess every little thing. Now, can you give me anything really concrete that really applies to the state of gender or what?

 

[mike1921]

The decision of whether or not they have lobed or unlobed ears is not arbitrary though.

..but as you correctly point out the attachment of meaning to it is, and that's what the decision is.. it's the attachment of meaning. Whether you make the decision or defer it doesn't alter the bodies one bit.

Because it's an assessment of an aspect of the body not a decision to alter it. Also, the doctor's decision does not attach social meaning, the doctor really doesn't care if you throw your daughter in a pink dress and tell her to get rescued by a handsome prince. But sorry, there is a good amount of shit that comes with your sex and there's no reason to pretend like that's wrong to satisfy a few outliers. If your child has a vagina I'm thinking they're probably going to have periods after a certain time and will probably wanna keep their legs closed while sitting in public for modesty's sake.

There's a distinction between things and the concepts of things. That's a (if not the) central problem of Western philosophy for the past few centuries. Unicorns don't exist, and yet "unicorns have horns" is not a meaningless statement. Thus, how can you be sure that when you say "men have penises" that you're reflecting the existence of an ontologically distinct category of "men" which exists in reality? Penises exist, sure, but so do horns.

I accept transexuals so no I don't think a penis fully defines a man (I think a biologist would be more prone to think testes but whatever).

Definitions of categories are pretty iffy with complicated things, oh humans have 23 chromosomes so these down syndrome people aren't human, oh humans have sentience so these really smart aliens/robots are human, humans can see/hear/smell so these blind/deaf/anosmiac people aren't humans. Unicorns have horns is not a meaningless statement....but imagine a story where unicorns are an actual species and one loses its horn, is it still a unicorn? Probably, because a unicorn is an amalgamation of traits that tend to come together to create this thing (in this fictional world where the phrase "unicorn" refers to a species and not a solitary trait).

The fact of the matter is that our entire reproductive cycle is based on two sexes which are dimorphic, it's really over-simplistic to put it down to genitals.

Males and females have different hormonal and brain structures, so yes they're going to have different social tendencies

That's a non-sequitur. Even if men and women do have different hormonal and brain structures (and bear in mind that everyone has different hormonal and brain structures, and degrees of difference are often quite dependent on the frame of reference) how would that guarantee different social tendencies? It may be true, but it isn't something you can just assume and neither is it required in order to abductively explain reality.

Hormones alter your behavior significantly (testosterone increases aggression) and social interactions are just behaviors that happen with other people....so I'd be prone to call it the safest assumption I have made in my entire life honestly. Do you think I'd behave the same if you doubled my testosterone?

Just because there are outliers doesn't mean you can ignore the overwhelming majority. Regardless of clothing or social circumstances I bet you can guess for me the genitals of any person with at least 95% accuracy without looking at their crotch, because the traits are grouped and that grouping of traits is the categories of "male" and "female".

 

[Terminal Blue]

I think you should start over, fresh start, forget the character assassination, and give me a logical standpoint that doesn't have to go assuming that what we know doesn't matter or that it's an illusion or something. Descartes already handled that part of the work. We don't have to second-guess every little thing. Now, can you give me anything really concrete that really applies to the state of gender or what?

Okay, well let's start with that Cartesian base.

Descartes advocated a form of skepticism which held that it was necessary to doubt any premise which could be logically called into question. For Descartes, even the empirical senses could not be trusted, since the truth of what a person was seeing or hearing could always be held to be in doubt. Things can be taken as real only when it is impossible to doubt their existence. The most famous example is oneself, since in order to doubt the existence of oneself one would have to exist.

To assume the existence of the world, however, we require the existence of God, and this is where it starts to get problematic for a modern audience. The basis of Descartes argument is causality, that facts necessitate the existence of other facts. This is how we can know when it is necessary for something to be true, because things which we already know make it impossible to doubt. However, for us to know anything about a reality beyond ourselves (and which is still present when it leaves our minds) we must assume that something in reality causes itself, that something in reality exists by definition without requiring reference to anything else, otherwise the causal chain of facts has no source and will ultimately become circular. For Descartes, this self-causing object is literally God. Because God by definition exists and because God by definition would not lie to us, then reality can also be said to exist as the product of God.. but only as the product of God.

Cartesian rationalism is self-justifying. It has to be self-justifying in order to work, because if it is not then causality breaks down. So what happens when it becomes possible to doubt the existence of God? What happens when someone points out that it's just as possible and just as meaningful to say "god does not exist" as "god does exist".

For the sake of brevity, I'm going to cut straight to Nietzche since this specific problem is kind of his deal. The capacity to doubt the existence of God means that reason can no longer tell us anything about reality. It's all very well to say "I think therefore I am", but if the guarantee of existence is thought then without a self-justifying external referent then truth can only exist in the mind and cannot be extended beyond it into any kind of reality. That includes the supposedly ?innate? knowledge of the truth of causality which logically guarantees existence in the first place. After all, how do we actually know that thinking has to be "caused" by a thinker? Rationalism takes as innate the assumption that nothing cannot cause something, that certain things which can be known in the mind can be known to be true in reality because something causes the mind, but that assumption itself breaks down once we remove God because we are left with a reality which is not caused by anything.

A lot of people ignore or overlook Nietzche because of the extreme sketchiness of his proposed solution, but as a specific critique of rationalism this is kind of devastating. Once the possibility exists to doubt God's existence (regardless of whether we do or not) then rationalism no longer works. There is no going back to a world where you can simply say things and have them be true because you said them.

Now, why have I bothered with this detour? Well, what I hope I've shown is that the Cartesian claim to intrinsic knowledge of reality comes with certain terms and conditions. It isn't simply a way to allow us to dodge the problems of epistemology, and assuming that it is is to do Descartes a huge disservice. Descartes did not tell us ?you can say whatever you want about the world and have it be true?, he certainly wasn't saying ?if a lot of people believe in something, that makes it true?. Quite the opposite, he was saying ?under these very limited, specific conditions, we can know that things are true? and those conditions have broken down. It is up to you, if you're going to claim intrinsic knowledge of reality, to provide something to fill the void.

 

[FalloutJack]

Zoop

All very interesting, but you both misunderstood Descartes and what I have been saying. YOUR logic is non-Cartisian. I am deconstructing it. Descartes removed the doubt he constructed in his Meditations, piece by piece, by laying every little evidence on what he could prove back out of doubt like layers of brick, starting with the self as the cornerstone. You deny these bricks and cornerstones, and you have done nothing to prove your point.

 

[Terminal Blue]

YOUR logic is non-Cartisian. I am deconstructing it.

No you aren't. If you were, I would have no problem because you would by necessity be running into (and perhaps even dealing with) the same problems I'm trying to get you to recognize, not just bleating on about established facts of life as if that can be taken as read.

And yes, my logic is non-Cartesian because Cartesian rationalism doesn't actually work particularly well. If you actually attempted to use it, you may realize that.

Descartes removed the doubt he constructed in his Meditations, piece by piece, by laying every little evidence on what he could prove back out of doubt like layers of brick, starting with the self as the cornerstone.

Exactly. Do that.

Don't just say "oh, you're making simple things complicated!" Don't just say "oh, well it's the established facts of life and you can't question it", show me how the facts of life are facts of life, show me how they are impossible to question, and if you lapse into empiricism then I am walking the fuck out.

You make grandiose demands of me to provide rational justifications in your own terms, and yet you won't even justify yourself in those terms. All you've done is to claim that you don't need to.

 

[irishda]

snip

As much as I like Judith Butler, you keep bringing up different philosophers that are giving me flashbacks to my post-grad lit. theory courses, and I don't like that.

Next we'll be talking about Zizek and this thread will get considerably more X rated.

But god help you if you bring up Derrida and his goddamn differance

 

[FalloutJack]

Zoop

Well, obviously you haven't been paying attention to the entire thread and I can also strike philosophy from the list of things viable to your arguments. As for me, I've already made my statements clear here I still have the book. Where is your footwork to establish a logical theorum? Where is YOUR brickwork? I haven't seen any. I suppose you'll have to walk.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Yes....Male and Female. Regardless of what you think your are mentally and spiritually. No matter what operations you have you are still either male or female via birth. Same as race is real, even if i change my skin color I am not black.

 

[FalloutJack]

And here are tonight's scores at the finals...

Genders: 2
Doubts: 0

Genders will go on to the playoffs later at the regular broadcasting time. Good night and godspeed.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Yes, guy. Male and female people are real.

 

[Olas]

Sex is biological level denoted by chromosomes.
Gender is a choice and doesn't have to reflect sex.

Is gender really a choice? If it were then being transgender would be a choice and I don't think people would undergo all kinds of surgery to alter their physical appearance in accordance with something they just chose on a whim.

Humans seem to be the only organisms on this planet with free will. We have choice.

There's no such thing as free will.