Poll: Gender recognition offence

[Ishigami]

What? OP If you try hard enough I think you will come up with an even more convoluted way to ask a simple question.

I don't give a shit. If she looks like women I will address her as such until she corrects me.
Same for men.
In general I don?t give a shit about your gender or sexuality nor am I psychic but I got eyes and in 98% of cases I?m right, those 2% can correct me and if they feel offended then so fucking what?

 

[JimB]

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?

The term "mental disorder" is one that has a strict definition in medical and diagnostic parlance: it is a psychological syndrome or pattern which occurs in an individual, and causes distress via a painful symptom or disability, or it increases the risk of death, disability, or pain. The definition specifically excludes social reactions to the patient, so transgenderism doesn't qualify as a disorder because it is not always inherently painful or likely to lead a patient to self-harm. It certainly can qualify--that's what the term "gender dysphoria" is meant to describe--but on its own, a trangendered person who is allowed to express their gender without pushback from society and who does so in ways that don't demonstrate a decreased capacity to make competent judgments cannot be said to be suffering from a mental disorder.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

*scratches head at poll*

The poll is missing an option.

Where is the
"If someone has the physical features and external care of their sex it is not wrong to call them such:
> Yes, unless they correct you"
option?

Here's a radical notion, why don't we just treat people like how we'd like to be treated? If someone repeatedly misgenders you for some dumb reason, you'd be annoyed too, right? Just how like if someone deliberately mispronounces your name even when you correct them several times it starts to grate on the nerves.

So when someone corrects you, it'd just common courtesy to refer to them how they'd want to be referred to. You're free to think of them however you want to (There are no thought police, thank god), but at the very least when you speak or act, treat them how they'd like to be treated. It's not that hard.

Yes, there was some adjustment when my transgender buddy was starting to transition and he still looked kinda female, and I DID botch a lot of pronouns. But eventually I got used to it and now the only time I eve mess up is right I'm talking about an event in his past and I get mixed up. Once you've gotten used to it for one person, it's not that hard to make the shift to others.

Hell, I hang out with a friend who happens to cross-dress sometimes (He's not transgender, he just like to dress female sometimes), and he prefers to be called "she" while dressed as a woman. So I use "she" in that instance. I know he's still a guy under that, but that doesn't stop me from using the preferred pronoun. It's honestly not that difficult.

I've been called "cis scum" before a few times, merely for calling someone a "he" or "she" before knowing they were transgendered.

Then they're assholes. Humans aren't freakin' psychic. I think everyone's allowed at least one "oops" per person.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

The whole thing is pretty much impossible to wrap your head around if you don't identify similarly. If someone who identifies as a "Xe" or whatever flips out at you for calling them the wrong pronoun before they tell you, they're essentially getting mad at you for not being able to read their mind. So no, you wouldn't be a dick in that situation.

Whatever your logic or rhetoric on the subject is, the end result is that someone identifying as something isn't inherently hurting anybody. It's not even a matter of being right or wrong, it's just about basic social awareness and conflict resolution. In a scenario where both parties are socially competent, that would be recognized as an honest unawareness, they'd tell you "For future reference, I'm ____" you'd go "ok" and everyone is cool.

Nobody wants to be subjected to a diatribe about how they should do prerequisite reading before addressing you, or your contentious philosophy of why they're living their life wrong. Everyone has their own problems, and nobody else has to put up with yours. Making it a point to be shitty is a surefire way to not be liked or respected.

 

[Arctic Werewolf]

The term "mental disorder" is one that has a strict definition in medical and diagnostic parlance: it is a psychological syndrome or pattern which occurs in an individual, and causes distress via a painful symptom or disability, or it increases the risk of death, disability, or pain. The definition specifically excludes social reactions to the patient, so transgenderism doesn't qualify as a disorder because it is not always inherently painful or likely to lead a patient to self-harm. It certainly can qualify--that's what the term "gender dysphoria" is meant to describe--but on its own, a trangendered person who is allowed to express their gender without pushback from society and who does so in ways that don't demonstrate a decreased capacity to make competent judgments cannot be said to be suffering from a mental disorder.

I guess I thought a body/brain mismatch was inherently painful. How many trans individuals prefer to have a different physical body than the sex they identify with mentally? How common is that? I was born with a male body but I identify as a female but I prefer to have a male body?

 

[JimB]

I guess I thought a body/brain mismatch was inherently painful.

No more than wanting to lose weight is inherently anorexic. There are degrees of discomfort and degrees of adroitness in expressing and managing that discomfort.

How many trans individuals prefer to have a different physical body than the sex they identify with mentally? How common is that?

I'll have to direct you to Google for that one. Those are not numbers I possess.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

It is ridiculous to call a person "them" or "they" at first sight. Sorry, I will never do so.

If that transgender / transvestite / etc. person simply corrects me if I'm mistaken I will apologise and ask him / her how they would like to be adressed. Understanding comes mutually, the end.

 

[BarkBarker]

If you look it, I likely will go from that and adjust based on further observations among other things. If like many you are a one off stranger in my life who I won't be getting to know, I go off what I see. I've called a woman a man once by accident cos her skin seemed so damaged it was hard to get an idea and she was muscular and I swear to god she had a 5 o clock shadow on her. Said sorry, like goes on, if you look like something the initial is to say what it looks like. Hell my mother said as a kid I saw a small person going to work and said out loud "why is that child wearing a suit", often it is just say what you see.

 

[Arctic Werewolf]

I guess I thought a body/brain mismatch was inherently painful.

No more than wanting to lose weight is inherently anorexic. There are degrees of discomfort and degrees of adroitness in expressing and managing that discomfort.

OK, that makes sense. When you're failing to manage it well personally it becomes the disorder "gender dysphoria". But if it's not fucking up your life in that way, causing pain and negative patterns, then it's not a disorder. I probably have all sorts of issues and bad patterns that aren't really disorders.

Maybe a brain/body mismatch just sounds really serious, and that's why I had trouble understanding how it could not be considered a disorder. But these things aren't disorders when you're handling them like an ace and they don't cause you excessive pain. Got it.

 

[Erttheking]

I call people what they want to be called. It's an incredibly simple system that's served me well. If someone wants to be called her but I call that person he, that's just me being a twat. Am I proving anything? No. I'm just making someone uncomfortable.

 

[renegade7]

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

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

Let's see some citations then, Professor.

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.

Freud was "wrong" only insofar as the mechanisms he proposed were incorrect. But he was completely correct in his ideas that behavior is the result of processes internal to the mind, that we may not be immediately aware of what the forces influencing those processes are, that conditioned responses to external factors are what create those forces, and that we respond to the motivators informed by our instincts according to how that conditioning affects our behavior. Saying that Freud was wrong about psychology because of the whole Oedipus complex thing is like saying that Einstein was wrong about relativity because he refused to believe in Heiseinberg's principle.

Second, no, there is quite literally no evidence that gender fluidity is a thing, literally nothing.

Citation needed, Doctor.

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?

That's a statistical difference, not a deterministic one. There will be boys who act in ways more typically associated with girls, and vice versa. That is what is meant when it is said that gender behaviors exist on a spectrum, if you make a chart for intensity of a given behavior or emotional response to a given stimulus, then the typical male subject will fall in one range on the spectrum, and the typical female subject will fall in either the same range or with great overlap (say in the case of stress response to ending a romantic relationship), a nearby range (for instance, how talkative they are in friendly scenarios, how much they like math), or a very different range (for instance, how much they like full-contact sports or wearing a dress). Functionally, a person's gender is how that person tends to appear on spectra for different behavioral tendencies.

What's important to note is that every individual will have at least some behaviors in which they fall closer to the typical range for the gender other than what they identify with. Moreover, behaviors are not static throughout life. They can change with life experiences, social adaptation and conditioning, and biological factors, and it's rarely easy or even possible to determine which factors drove which change. If a person's behaviors begin to shift such that the overall pattern in their various behavior spectra begins to more closely match a typical pattern for the other gender, then functionally that person's gender has changed.

So I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that gender is static.

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

Can we also maybe crack a biology textbook once in a while so that we could maybe learn when there is and when there is not any explanatory power in invoking biological explanations and the risks of begging the question?

Of course biology "drives" sociology, because humans are animals and therefore are a part of biology. But the argument "Men and women have some biological differences, and men and women behave differently in some ways, therefore behavioral differences in men and women (ie gender) are due to biology so that sex and gender are the same thing" is begging the question because it presupposes that biology is the only influence on behavior.

Moreover, if gender behavior differences were instinctive, then a gender binary and the gender norms we see in our culture would be universal to all cultures. This is not what is observed, so it must be the case that biology is not the only factor responsible for gender and gender differences.

I call people what they want to be called. It's an incredibly simple system that's served me well. If someone wants to be called her but I call that person he, that's just me being a twat. Am I proving anything? No. I'm just making someone uncomfortable.

What are you, some kind of PC radfem SJW? Manners? What?

 

[JimB]

I guess I thought a body/brain mismatch was inherently painful.

No more than wanting to lose weight is inherently anorexic. There are degrees of discomfort and degrees of adroitness in expressing and managing that discomfort.

OK, that makes sense. When you're failing to manage it well personally it becomes the disorder "gender dysphoria."

Or when your symptoms are more extreme for whatever reason, which is a distinction I think is worth drawing. Have you ever heard of phantom itch or phantom pain? Some people who have received amputations can still perceive sensation, almost always unpleasant, in the missing limb; I don't know the specific science behind it, but I'm told that this is because the human brain has kind of a topographical map of the body, and when the body doesn't match that map, it can be anything from an irritant to a source of extreme pain. Whether a given person experiences that pain is dependent on the brain's reaction to the violation of that mental blueprint.

Transgenderism, to the best of my knowledge, is related to this map the brain has of the body, and thus the discomfort scales just as does phantom pain. Some people experience the pain, some don't. For some people the pain is bad; for some it's more of an irritant. I've never been able to find someone who can describe to me exactly what this trauma feels like, at least not in terminology I feel I comfortably understand, but I've never personally encountered someone whose experience with being transgendered has felt physically painful. It's always been more...existential, I guess. A sense of wrong-ness.

But you shouldn't take my testimony about how it feels to have a condition I don't possess. I really just added that last bit because I'd feel bad if it sounded like I'm saying being transgendered is physically painful when, to the best of my personal knowledge, it's not.

 

[Darkmantle]

I call people what they want to be called. It's an incredibly simple system that's served me well. If someone wants to be called her but I call that person he, that's just me being a twat. Am I proving anything? No. I'm just making someone uncomfortable.

I agree up to a point, but there's people who want to be called "bun/buns/bunself"

Nope, I'm not going to do that. Calling transgender people by the gender they identify as is one thing, inventing new pronouns whole cloth is another

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I call people what they want to be called. It's an incredibly simple system that's served me well. If someone wants to be called her but I call that person he, that's just me being a twat. Am I proving anything? No. I'm just making someone uncomfortable.

I agree up to a point, but there's people who want to be called "bun/buns/bunself"

Nope, I'm not going to do that. Calling transgender people by the gender they identify as is one thing, inventing new pronouns whole cloth is another

Yeah but that's otherkin. Not transgender people.

 

[mrdude2010]

If you have no way of knowing, it's ridiculous of them to get offended. If they correct you and you continue using the wrong term, they're perfectly right to be upset.

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

The problem is with someone wanting to be identified as what they are not, is that doing so is literally impossible for a rational human being. It's not a matter of needing to be more open minded and accepting, its asking people to do something that is logically impossible for them to do.

Imagine I showed you a tomato and said "from now on, I want you to call this thing a bicycle". It is possible that you might start calling the tomatoes bicycles. Maybe because you want to humor me or because you're afraid of me. But in your mind you will think, "I'm calling tomatoes a bicycles now". The most you can do is say the words, the concept is impossible for you, or any rational person, to fully accept.

 

[JimB]

The problem is with someone wanting to be identified as what they are not, is that doing so is literally impossible for a rational human being.

Words do not have objective meanings. Their meaning is defined by general use; see also that one of the definitions of the word "literal" is now "not literal." Anyone who finds it genuinely impossible to assign a new meaning to a word either has a neurological impairment of some kind or else is trying to avoid responsibility for their choices by claiming that objective universal forces prevent them from doing so.

 

[Rosiv]

Spoiler

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

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

Let's see some citations then, Professor.

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.

Freud was "wrong" only insofar as the mechanisms he proposed were incorrect. But he was completely correct in his ideas that behavior is the result of processes internal to the mind, that we may not be immediately aware of what the forces influencing those processes are, that conditioned responses to external factors are what create those forces, and that we respond to the motivators informed by our instincts according to how that conditioning affects our behavior. Saying that Freud was wrong about psychology because of the whole Oedipus complex thing is like saying that Einstein was wrong about relativity because he refused to believe in Heiseinberg's principle.

Second, no, there is quite literally no evidence that gender fluidity is a thing, literally nothing.

Citation needed, Doctor.

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?

That's a statistical difference, not a deterministic one. There will be boys who act in ways more typically associated with girls, and vice versa. That is what is meant when it is said that gender behaviors exist on a spectrum, if you make a chart for intensity of a given behavior or emotional response to a given stimulus, then the typical male subject will fall in one range on the spectrum, and the typical female subject will fall in either the same range or with great overlap (say in the case of stress response to ending a romantic relationship), a nearby range (for instance, how talkative they are in friendly scenarios, how much they like math), or a very different range (for instance, how much they like full-contact sports or wearing a dress). Functionally, a person's gender is how that person tends to appear on spectra for different behavioral tendencies.

What's important to note is that every individual will have at least some behaviors in which they fall closer to the typical range for the gender other than what they identify with. Moreover, behaviors are not static throughout life. They can change with life experiences, social adaptation and conditioning, and biological factors, and it's rarely easy or even possible to determine which factors drove which change. If a person's behaviors begin to shift such that the overall pattern in their various behavior spectra begins to more closely match a typical pattern for the other gender, then functionally that person's gender has changed.

So I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that gender is static.

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

Can we also maybe crack a biology textbook once in a while so that we could maybe learn when there is and when there is not any explanatory power in invoking biological explanations and the risks of begging the question?

Of course biology "drives" sociology, because humans are animals and therefore are a part of biology. But the argument "Men and women have some biological differences, and men and women behave differently in some ways, therefore behavioral differences in men and women (ie gender) are due to biology so that sex and gender are the same thing" is begging the question because it presupposes that biology is the only influence on behavior.

Moreover, if gender behavior differences were instinctive, then a gender binary and the gender norms we see in our culture would be universal to all cultures. This is not what is observed, so it must be the case that biology is not the only factor responsible for gender and gender differences.

I call people what they want to be called. It's an incredibly simple system that's served me well. If someone wants to be called her but I call that person he, that's just me being a twat. Am I proving anything? No. I'm just making someone uncomfortable.

What are you, some kind of PC radfem SJW? Manners? What?

Its not that I disagree with you, but I have always seen Evilthecat argue that gender is propogated by social factors only.

And then I think you are critizing zontar for saying that biological factors can be involved, when you even admit to biology being a possible route.

This is not what is observed, so it must be the case that biology is not the only factor responsible for gender and gender differences.

I just don't think its fair to lambast zontar for a point that at least you, him and I are in somewhat of agreance with. Unless I misunderstand completly, in which case feel free to lambast me for it, since it is rude of me to interject.