Poll: Gender recognition offence

[happyninja42]

Ugh, Adam and Steve. I hate that phrase. xD I know you're using it for example purposes, but considering how many times I've actually heard some bible thumper around here use that phrase to promote some anti-gay agenda just really chaps my ass. "It says Adam and EVE, not Adam and Steve!" and then they act like they can do a mic drop moment and win the argument. Makes me want to suplex them off the ropes.

Yes, but that's exactly why it came to mind. XD

Oh I know, it's just, if I have anything close to a "trigger" it's hearing shit like that. Living here in the bible belt of the South in the US, where there are 2 churches on every city block (if not more), I've heard it a lot. Listening to them piece together disparate passages into this frankenstein's monster hybrid of a complete thought to back up their batshit crazy theory. Just, bleh.

Eh, sorry, derailing thread, I'll stop.

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

if you were born a guy i'll call you a guy .. if your were born a girl i'll call you a girl. .. regardless of what you look like now..

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

if you were born a guy i'll call you a guy .. if your were born a girl i'll call you a girl. .. regardless of what you look like now..

So you check birth certificates before you gender people? Not damn likely. That whole statement sounds pretty much like a declaration of transpobia to me.

If they aren't presenting then no, they don't have a right to be mad. It's simple math. If they aren't presenting as the gender they identify with then the only alternatives are that they're either presenting as their sex or presenting neutral. The gender norms are to be assumed unless indicated otherwise as to avoid offending cis people as well whose feelings and desires to be seen as what they identify as are just as valuable.

So you refer to cisgender men who are feminine as women and cisgender women who are butch as men? I think not. People have the right to complain if you misgender them, you don't agree, but insisting on referring to someone counter to their wishes isn't about being correct... It's being an arsehole, plain and simple. Some trans women work in construction, some trans men are seamstresses, some cis men like to wear skirts, some cis women dress like lumberjacks. Treating someone different than their wishes because of their presentation isn't right, it's not being correct, it's being exclusionary, because you're violating them as a person. So yeah, a trans woman who presents like a man has every right to be mad at you, if you treat her opposite her identity. This is because you're actively invalidating her as a woman. Presentation is not identity, period.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Well I can't speak to most of this on account of the fact the internet has not come to an agreement of what most of these terms mean, but I can state that gender-fluidity is very much not a thing despite what some people may tell themselves. It's a physically impossible state of the mind remapping itself on a whim that if it was real would be tantamount to an extreme bipolar disorder that would make the person in question unable to properly think (or function in society) and would require near constant supervision to make sure they don't harm themselves in the same way schizophrenics do (having a psychology teacher who detests gender ideologies who make things up was a fun semester).

Clearly, you also had a psychology teacher who had never learned anything about psychology or read a book on the subject.

Because it's pretty much a foundational principle in psychology, going back to Freud and still verifiable with the most basic observation of a very young child, that "gender-fluidity" (or "congenital bisexuality" as it used to be called, bisexuality in this case meaning possessing two sexes rather than desiring two sexes, because early theorizations of sex/gender were not very sophisticated) is the state into which human beings are born. The attachment to gender is, as far as anyone can tell, merely a neurotic self-concept formed in early childhood.

In other news, God, this is a thread full of hateful fucking bullshit isn't it..

Also, speaking of grammar (yeah, this is English, we only have gendered pronouns as a grammatical relic from Latin, they're basically meaningless otherwise) what the fuck is with that poll question?

 

[Zontar]

Clearly, you also had a psychology teacher who had never learned anything about psychology or read a book on the subject.

Ah, the old "I'm no expert, but the expert is wrong" approach.

Because it's pretty much a foundational principle in psychology, going back to Freud and still verifiable with the most basic observation of a very young child, that "gender-fluidity" (or "congenital bisexuality" as it used to be called, bisexuality in this case meaning possessing two sexes rather than desiring two sexes, because early theorizations of sex/gender were not very sophisticated) is the state into which human beings are born. The attachment to gender is, as far as anyone can tell, merely a neurotic self-concept formed in early childhood.

There are two problems with this, first is the fact that Freud was wrong. As in everything he believed about psychology has been disproved. The only reason his work is still taught is because of its place in the history of psychology, not because of its accuracy. It's like how we still teach Lamarckism in basic biology despite it being wrong.

Second, no, there is quite literally no evidence that gender fluidity is a thing, literally nothing. Meanwhile there is a body of evidence showing that within a month from birth instinct will make boys and girls act differently, so at best IF it exists (so far there is no reason to assume it does give biology and instinct are the foundation of gender at a young age) it's only for a very short time before we even see distinct personality develop. IF it exists, it's irrelevant as it goes away even when we intentionally try to maintain it. It's definitely not something that someone can just stand up and say "I'm gender fluid" since instinct will take over and you're either one or the other, sexual or asexual, and in a small percentage of cases happen to have the mind and body not match up. Fluidity doesn't last long enough for us to even show it exists due to ethical concerns, should we really humour people who are far too old to possibly have retained it even if we assume it does exist, since we know they do not in fact have it?

Also, can we also stop disregarding biology in a topic where biology is the driving force?

 

[Terminal Blue]

Ah, the old "I'm no expert, but the expert is wrong" approach.

Unless by "teacher" you mean "has a PhD in gender psychology" I am actually more of an expert at this point. Heck, even if you do, I can still compete..

There are two problems with this, first is the fact that Freud was wrong. As in everything he believed about psychology has been disproved.

Not remotely true.

This is one of those myths they teach first year undergrads in an effort to try and impress on them how serious and scientific their discipline is. While much of Freudian theory is now held in low regard, and with good reason, there is a reason why it is still almost always the first thing any psychology course will teach, because many of its basic observations and terminology remains foundational to the discipline. Heck, it remains in clinical practice to some extent in the form of psychodynamic therapy.

Second, no, there is quite literally no evidence that gender fluidity is a thing, literally nothing. Meanwhile there is a body of evidence showing that within a month from birth instinct will make boys and girls act differently, so at best IF it exists (so far there is no reason to assume it does give biology and instinct are the foundation of gender at a young age) it's only for a very short time before we even see distinct personality develop.

You're misusing the term instinct. That's a bad sign. A baby will instinctively grasp an object placed on its palm, that's an "instinct", it's a clearly defined stimulus response which is demonstrably innate.

Secondly, a few isolated observations with no clear theoretical mechanism is not a "body of evidence". Particularly not when significant counter evidence exists. Even a cursory examination of the scope of human behaviour would show that gender is far, far more complicated in practice than you are giving credit, and produce numerous examples to dispute the notion of "instinctive" male and female behaviours.

IF it exists, it's irrelevant as it goes away even when we intentionally try to maintain it. It's definitely not something that someone can just stand up and say "I'm gender fluid" since instinct will take over and you're either one or the other, sexual or asexual, and in a small percentage of cases happen to have the mind and body not match up.

Right, but since you can only infer "instinct" from observation, and you have absolutely no viable mechanism to explain what it is or why it exists, then the act of standing up and saying "I'm genderfluid" could just as easily be used to infer the existence of an "instinctive" genderfluidity. See above. If the only criteria for declaring something "instinctive" is that it exists, then all human behaviour could be classed as instinctive if we wished.

I mean, you think you're either male or female.. I could very easily say that's impossible because noone can ever be completely male or completely female, and thus that you're simply deluding yourself and making up this crap about instinct to try and disguise your own neurotic attachment to an identity which you've made up. I could say that, I wouldn't because it would be dumb, but it's no more dumb than what you're doing, in fact it's slightly less dumb because there is a clear pattern of socialization aimed at producing socially "normal" men and women, whereas no pattern of socialization intentionally sets out to produce gender non binary persons.

And if your psychology teacher taught you that "biology" was the defining force in gender then they completely mislead you, because that is definitively wrong (as in, it violates the definitions of the terms themselves).

 

[Zontar]

Unless by "teacher" you mean "has a PhD in gender psychology" I am actually more of an expert at this point. Heck, even if you do, I can still compete..

Why do I have a feeling you do not in fact have a PhD in gender psychology.

You're misusing the term instinct. That's a bad sign. A baby will instinctively grasp an object placed on its palm, that's an "instinct", it's a clearly defined stimulus response which is demonstrably innate.

True, but having two sets of objects that are of equal distance from a subject with subjects from one group consistently moving towards one type of object while those of another groups consistently move towards the other does show something instinctual, not that they will move towards an object, but WHICH object they will move towards.

Secondly, a few isolated observations with no clear theoretical mechanism is not a "body of evidence". Particularly not when significant counter evidence exists. Even a cursory examination of the scope of human behaviour would show that gender is far, far more complicated in practice than you are giving credit, and produce numerous examples to dispute the notion of "instinctive" male and female behaviours.

You're right, gender is complicated. Which is something gender ideologues should learn, since the reason we're seeing the sudden rise in fake genders is because they think that anyone who doesn't conform 100% to stereotypes is something other then a man or woman. Plus it would also beg the question that, if it's a social construct, why is it one found in every society regardless of how many thousands or tens of thousands of years separated said societies? Or why many apes with close relations to our species show similar characteristics.

It almost seems that there probably is something instinctual involved, and if not, it's probably universal for a reason other then "because someone said it should".

I mean, you think you're male.. I could very easily say that's impossible because noone can ever be completely male, and thus that you're simply deluding yourself and making up this crap about instinct to try and disguise your own neurotic attachment to an identity which you've made up. I could say that, I wouldn't because it would be dumb, but it's no more dumb than what you're doing, in fact it's slightly less dumb because there is a clear pattern of socialization aimed at producing socially "normal" men and women, whereas no pattern of socialization intentionally sets out to produce gender non binary persons.

So what you're saying is because something we have as a society observed since... well we can't really say since historical records don't go that far back, is something you could more easily defend as made up in comparison to something we have literally no evidence even exists and is at best a hypothetical temporary state which we grow out of faster then we learn to walk or talk?

And if your psychology teacher taught you that "biology" was the defining force in gender then they completely mislead you, because that is definitively wrong (as in, it violates the definitions of the terms themselves).

No, she didn't go that far. My biology professor, on the other hand, did, though the open warfare between biology and psychology (and the rest of sociology for that matter) is one that isn't a secret to anyone in academia, though it's a bit of a one sided fight since only one side has hard evidence instead of educated guesses on the matter (and even then "educated" may be a stretch in some cases, such as the entire field of gender studies in its totality).

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

You call people you don't know whatever you think is appropriate, if you're wrong people will correct you and that's that.
If someone throws a hissyfit because of it instead of correcting you, then turn around and leave - because there's nothing to gain. I mean if you're pre-op (for example) and still look like whatever you're born as, don't be mad when people call you the respective pronoun - which is correct in around 99/100 cases?

I get that misgendering can be very annoying, i had to deal with that myself in the roughly first 10 years of my life, because i just looked like a little goldylock-girl. But as long the people are makin' mistakes because they don't know you, there's no reason to rip them to shreds.
Sure, if someone's a dickhead about it and refuses to change the pronoun then feel free to tell him he's a ****.

 

[sumanoskae]

I cannot begin to describe the depth of the void that exists where all the fucks I don't give about what people want to call themselves would be.

I have a friend who one day decided he wanted to be called Ulysses, so I started calling him Ulysses, because doing so had absolutely no tangible effect on my life whatsoever. Perhaps he likes to think it has a significant effect on his life, but I can't imagine that it does, and I think he's smart enough to understand that.

It flummoxes me how people can get so anal and defensive about what technically constitutes a proper use for "He" or "She". I'll call you whatever you want to be called, because as far as I'm concerned, the terminology is rendered meaningless when divorced from the objective standard of your birth gender.

If all that needs to happen for you to be classified as a girl is for you to decide that you are, then the term has no point. I'm okay with that, but I'm still going to mentally catalog your gender based on your biology, because from my perspective that's the only thing it determines about you.

 

[RedRockRun]

Unless someone has a big sign on them that states their preferred gender and underneath is a doctor's note certifying that person to have actual gender dysphoria disorder, I'm referring to that person by old fashioned pronouns. I know people who suffer from that disorder, and they don't deserve to be dragged down by the fake drama queens of Tumblr who don't get enough attention in 9th grade.

 

[Tanis]

If it smells like a duck.
If it looks like a duck.
If it quacks like a duck.
If it dresses like a duck.
If it has feathers like a duck.
If it does duck-like things like a duck.

Then it's a duck, unless I'm told otherwise.
Then it's a unicorn or a geese or a purple rabbit, or however it wants to be called.

But don't dare give me any limp because I wasn't 'sensitive enough' to read your mind or see your bumper sticker.
When that happens, I'm calling you duck because you CHOOSE to go quackers on me for no reason other than you're a donkey.

 

[elvor0]

Okay, I'm going to zip up my flame suit, pop some med-x and hurl myself headlong into the fire:

whole lot of off topic

Does any of that relate to this thread though? I don't think we're talking about people who identify as bats, just the usual male-female thing.

Not really, OP was talking about non-binary genderism, not just male/female.

I find it difficult to understand how I should find out that someone who has the physical aspects of a woman Is gender fluid/non-binary.

Op is talking about extreme views/reactions on that matter. I'm addressing the extreme and my own struggles to understand the vast majority of that area. First bit is more sexuality which is /kind of/ off topic I'll admit, but it ties into my struggling getting my head round it and the two are inexorably linked.

You can stick to male/female, I'm just moving to different areas of the scope the OP is talking about, as I /personally/ find male/female quite acceptable and have had no problems in my admittedly few encounters with those that defined themselves as the opposite gender in a purely binary matter. People want to stick to just male/female discussion that's fine, but I feel the OP most definitely encompasses my post too.

Male/Female/Other is not the same as Male/Female/Dogkin. If you want to pretend otherwise, you're going to be totally alone in that.

You're just being way too obvious. Why not back off on this, and try again with a more subtle pitch for bigotry?

Way to miss the point. If you'd actually read my post instead of insisting that I'm being bigoted in an attempt to stick your own blinkered narrative, you'd notice that I said "This stuff harms people with actual gender issues". OP stated non binary gender. He didn't stick limits on it. I fucking hate trying to talk about this stuff, I can't ask questions or be a little bit off the beaten bath or I get labelled a fucking bigot. "He's asking difficult questions. OH WELL HE MUST BE A BIGOT!" Are you that short sighted that you think someone trying to dig and ask questions must be bigoted? Being accepting of something, doesn't mean I'm going to just accept it at face value.

And I already said that I'm quite happy and accepting of the notion of male/female transgenderism, and can easily understand it. Hence why I'm not talking about it because I don't need or want to.

I was talking about the stuff that I was in order to highlight just how ridiculous it was and why it harms those with actual gender issues, because its basically gender hipsterism. As a result of those fucking asinine things popping out of the wood work, it makes it difficult to take the issue seriously for those who otherwise might, as that insanity is always hanging over the issue. I was also seeking answers on my own problems understanding the spectrum of asexuality. But y'know whatever, bigoted people ask questions in an attempt to understand and enlighten themselves, right? You people are the worst, you don't want to engage in discussion, you just want to pat each other on the back, and shut down anyone who attempts to ask harder questions by accusing them of non existent prejudices.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Why do I have a feeling you do not in fact have a PhD in gender psychology.

I'm willing to bet your teacher didn't either, but I've at least written on the subject.

True, but having two sets of objects that are of equal distance from a subject with subjects from one group consistently moving towards one type of object while those of another groups consistently move towards the other does show something instinctual, not that they will move towards an object, but WHICH object they will move towards.

No it doesn't.

Observing something does not magically grant knowledge of why it happens, and let's just say those particular "observations" are universally dodgy as fuck.

I recall a similar experiment done specifically to illustrate the problem with these kinds of experiments, where grad students were told they were taking part in a sexual difference experiment involving children's response to particular sex-appropriate toys (they were unaware in this case of actually being the subjects). They were tasked with holding the toys and moving them to attract the baby's attention. Whether intentional or otherwise, researchers found the movement of the toys was far more vigorous when the grad students understood the toys to be gender appropriate. In other words, the belief that they were taking part in a study with the goal of "discovering" gender differences lead them, without realizing, to try and produce the result they expected.

Again, an isolated observation, but it illustrates something very important about science. Almost all experiments confirm their hypotheses. A single experiment basically illustrates nothing, not until a detailed understanding can be exhibited not just of whether something allegedly happens but also the precise mechanism why, and that is completely absent in this case.

You're right, gender is complicated. Which is something gender ideologues should learn, since the reason we're seeing the sudden rise in fake genders is because they think that anyone who doesn't conform 100% to stereotypes is something other then a man or woman.

You do realize that your insistence that "man" and "woman" are "real" genders could equally be read as ideological?

Plus it would also beg the question that, if it's a social construct, why is it one found in every society regardless of how many thousands or tens of thousands of years separated said societies?

It isn't. Certainly not in the same form.

Almost all societies have a social category of sex, which generally has its foundations in a logic about reproduction (although it is very seldom reducible purely to reproduction and is very seldom the same logic about reproduction, there are cultures in which people don't believe that sexual intercourse is the source of pregnancy, for example). In remarkably few is sex taken to socially mean the same thing as it means in the West.

Let me give a really basic example. The association of female and male with pink and blue respectively. Serious research has been performed attempting to suggest that gender colour preference is an "instinctive" (in the sense you're misusing the term) tendency held over from sexually differentiated hunter gatherer roles, in which women were required to respond more strongly to red spectrum colours in order to pick out brightly coloured berries.

Sounds legit right? Except that a mere glance at the historical record would show that a century and a half ago years ago, gender colour preference in the English speaking world was inverted. Pink, like all red spectrum colours, was seen to have implications of activity and virility and was therefore strongly associated with maleness. Indeed, this whole flintstonian model of men as "natural" hunters and women as "natural" gatherers is completely up in the air when it comes to early humans, particularly since the whole anthropological model of hunter and gather as separate roles has been found to be extremely flawed even in the case of most modern societies.

Almost all of the "instinctive behaviours" turned up by sexual difference research could be shown false by the most casual foray into the anthropological or historical record. That so few people bother to do so is testament to what an intellectual wasteland sexual difference research is as a discipline.

So what you're saying is because something we have as a society observed since... well we can't really say since historical records don't go that far back, is something you could more easily defend as made up in comparison to something we have literally no evidence even exists and is at best a hypothetical temporary state which we grow out of faster then we learn to walk or talk?

Except we can still observe, and the reality is a lot less simple than you suggest.

My biology professor, on the other hand, did, though the open warfare between biology and psychology (and the rest of sociology for that matter) is one that isn't a secret to anyone in academia, though it's a bit of a one sided fight since only one side has hard evidence instead of educated guesses on the matter (and even then "educated" may be a stretch in some cases, such as the entire field of gender studies in its totality).

He or she should probably have just stuck to teaching you biology.

There is no "open warfare", what there is is a perfectly justifiable resistance to the flawed conclusions put forward by the kind of simplistic reductionism certain biologists or psychologists are prone to peddling. I've met people working in the field of biology whose understanding of sex possesses a depth and complexity which puts my own understanding to shame (which is, I presume, why they were employed in that discipline). I owe a great deal of my knowledge and understanding to those people.

None of them simply engaged in sociological or psychological research and then claimed retrospectively that it was "biological" without providing any evidence beyond a grandiose claim that all psychological or sociological conclusions must be reducible to biology (because.. reasons). They didn't try to claim that because women observably like to buy shoes they must be "biologically programmed" to buy shoes or that Jimmy Choo must have existed in the ancestral environment. Like good biologists, they looked at biological processes as nothing more than biological processes and sought to understand their functioning from the ground up, not from the top down, you know, gathering "hard evidence" instead of making "educated guesses".

And if a teacher actually taught you that biology and sociology are "in open warfare" then you've basically lost the right to complain about ideology in education, because it's very clear your own education was ideologically compromised. If biology and psychology are so fundamentally different, why can't you tell the difference between their methodologies? Why is it that you don't even notice when a biologist is asking a sociological question instead of a biological one?

 

[Padwolf]

There's nothing wrong with trans or anyone else. I'll call people what they want to be called by and if they correct me, then I can apologise and call them by the correct name/whatever. The problem is when tumblrinas start insulting others for being "cis". Hell, that term has become a slur towards anyone who just wants to be male or female. It's fecking stupid.

However, if you ask me to call you by the name of "otherkin" that is when I'm going to laugh at you.

 

[Something Amyss]

The problem is when tumblrinas start insulting others for being "cis". Hell, that term has become a slur towards anyone who just wants to be male or female. It's fecking stupid.

I'm curious as to how many times you've actually personally experienced this, rather than heard it as an anecdote.

Despite being trans myself, and having a trans SO who is a "Tumblrina," I'm yet to see much in the way of serious comments to that end. It seems more like people trying to distill a large and diverse site into the essence of [things I hate]. And people do the same about women, Padwolf.

 

[MrFalconfly]

If it smells like a duck.
If it looks like a duck.
If it quacks like a duck.
If it dresses like a duck.
If it has feathers like a duck.
If it does duck-like things like a duck.

Then it's a duck, unless I'm told otherwise.
Then it's a unicorn or a geese or a purple rabbit, or however it wants to be called.

But don't dare give me any limp because I wasn't 'sensitive enough' to read your mind or see your bumper sticker.
When that happens, I'm calling you duck because you CHOOSE to go quackers on me for no reason other than you're a donkey.

That's more or less it.

Initial gender identification is visual in nature, which means that if certain criteria (like beard, or boobs, just to name a few examples) are fulfilled then we'll probably go with the gender that normally (probably about 99% of the times) fit with those physical criteria.

We aren't psychic, so it'd be a bit churlish to get pissed off for someones lack of ability to read minds.

 

[Padwolf]

The problem is when tumblrinas start insulting others for being "cis". Hell, that term has become a slur towards anyone who just wants to be male or female. It's fecking stupid.

I'm curious as to how many times you've actually personally experienced this, rather than heard it as an anecdote.

Despite being trans myself, and having a trans SO who is a "Tumblrina," I'm yet to see much in the way of serious comments to that end. It seems more like people trying to distill a large and diverse site into the essence of [things I hate]. And people do the same about women, Padwolf.

I've been called "cis scum" before a few times, merely for calling someone a "he" or "she" before knowing they were transgendered. I've also seen someone on here calling others "cis scum" here and there and genuinely meaning it. Oh, and I know not ALL people on tumblr are tumblrinas. I'm refer to the people who claim that there is no LGBT literature in the world and things like that or claim that everything should have a trigger warning. Of which there are many. Hell, there is one on my facebook. Being a woman myself, I do understand. But I have been called "cis scum" before. I KNOW not all transgender people are the same, and I wouldn't put them all into a category. Sorry if I caused any offence, it wasn't meant to

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh, and I know not ALL people on tumblr are tumblrinas.

And not all people who want equal rights for women are feminazis. Still, that's how the term ends up being used in common parlance. It, similarly, s a snarl word.

And my SO is within the exact group usually accused of being Tumblrinas. I don't take offense on behalf of others, but this is exactly the problem.

 

[Arctic Werewolf]

That's a cop-out. If you are the man of science you claim to be, then you know one hundred percent certainty is effectively impossible, because the most a scientist can say is, "I have not yet seen the case that contradicts our belief, but it may yet exist;" meaning the possibility you demand be eliminated never can. Frankly, I think your application of the principle is hypocritical, because your denouncement of creationism could be responded to with exactly the same sentiment--"It's possible you don't know something that proves God made the universe in seven days, so as long as that possibility exists, I don't want to be complicit in enabling scientific propaganda"--so I think if you want to be considered honest, then the burden is on you to prove transgenderism is a disease by identifying its psychopathology or finding peer-reviewed and generally accepted studies that do so for you.

I have a question from the perspective of someone who is no scientist. Just by the nature of what transgenderism is, how could it possibly not be a disorder, mental or otherwise? I am using wikipedia for my definition so feel free to refer me to a better one. It states "Transgender people experience a mismatch between their gender identity or gender expression and their assigned sex." Born in the wrong body, basically. Well how the hell is that not a disorder? Are we saying they were supposed to be born in the wrong body? If you say "yes" I think my head will explode lol.

Anyone feel free to weigh in.