Queer theory

[scarletlatitude]

(Side note -- not trying to be rude. "Queer theory" is literally what it is called.) 

 

I learned a thing today. There is a "queer theory". Basically it says that because different genders and sexualities exist in nature, there is nothing intrinsically male or female. All notions of gender or sex are based on cultural dynamics. If anyone knows more info on this besides what I have learned, please enlighten us. I want to know more about this. 

 

 

 

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Queer theory "focuses on mismatches between sex, gender and desire"

Queer theory's attempted debunking of stable (and correlated) sexes, genders, and sexualities develops out of the specifically lesbian and gay reworking of the post-structuralist figuring of identity as a constellation of multiple and unstable positions. Queer theory examines the discourses of homosexuality developed in the last century in order to place the "queer" into historical context, deconstructing contemporary arguments both for and against this latest terminology.

 

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Gender(s), Power, and Marginalization

Gender studies and queer theory explore issues of sexuality, power, and marginalized populations (woman as other) in literature and culture. Much of the work in gender studies and queer theory, while influenced by feminist criticism, emerges from post-structural interest in fragmented, de-centered knowledge building (Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault), language (the breakdown of sign-signifier), and psychoanalysis (Lacan).

A primary concern in gender studies and queer theory is the manner in which gender and sexuality is discussed: "Effective as this work [feminism] was in changing what teachers taught and what the students read, there was a sense on the part of some feminist critics that...it was still the old game that was being played, when what it needed was a new game entirely. The argument posed was that in order to counter patriarchy, it was necessary not merely to think about new texts, but to think about them in radically new ways" (Richter 1432).

Therefore, a critic working in gender studies and queer theory might even be uncomfortable with the binary established by many feminist scholars between masculine and feminine: "Cixous (following Derrida in Of Grammatology) sets up a series of binary oppositions (active/passive, sun/moon...father/mother, logos/pathos). Each pair can be analyzed as a hierarchy in which the former term represents the positive and masculine and the latter the negative and feminine principle" (Richter 1433-1434).

In-Betweens

Many critics working with gender and queer theory are interested in the breakdown of binaries such as male and female, the in-betweens (also following Derrida's interstitial knowledge building). For example, gender studies and queer theory maintains that cultural definitions of sexuality and what it means to be male and female are in flux: "...the distinction between "masculine" and "feminine" activities and behavior is constantly changing, so that women who wear baseball caps and fatigues...can be perceived as more piquantly sexy by some heterosexual men than those women who wear white frocks and gloves and look down demurely" (Richter 1437).

Moreover, Richter reminds us that as we learn more about our genetic structure, the biology of male/female becomes increasingly complex and murky: "even the physical dualism of sexual genetic structures and bodily parts breaks down when one considers those instances - XXY syndromes, natural sexual bimorphisms, as well as surgical transsexuals - that defy attempts at binary classification" (1437).

 

 

(First one from Wikipedia, second one from Purdue) 

 

 

Info below:

- http://guides.library.illinois.edu/queertheory/background 

- http://isj.org.uk/queer-theory-and-politics/ 

- https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/queer-theory 

- https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/12/

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theory

[SpeakoftheDevil]

Judith Butler is one of my fav queer theorists! She's very theory heavy though so it can be hard to understand all her points. She speaks a lot to gender and sex as performative, socially reproduces generation to generation. 

Here's a cool video of that point of hers: 

 

I also love this video on the subject: 

 

[Andiamo]

Yes, queer theory is definitely a thing! Judith Butler is great (when you can understand what it is that she's trying to write); she's the one that first laid out what queer theory is, though she didn't name it, that came later. Basically, the main tenet of queer theory is that gender is performative. Gender exists within a set of social norms that is culturally and historically specific. It is created through repetition, and sometimes the repetition changes.

 

I know a lot about queer theory since I'm basically majoring in feminist and queer theory, so I have a lot to say about it but it gets really complicated really fast. At its simplest, queer theory is the idea that gender is performed.

[Pramana]

Queer theory is a methodology derived from feminism and poststructuralism that is designed to challenge oppressive discourses, and which has become influential for contemprotary identity politics. Basic premises:

1. Sexual orientations and genders are social constructs that describe one's situatedness with respect to social discourses. Usual queer theory backstory is that concepts of heterosexuality and homosexuality and male/female gender arose during the 19th century, as modern capitalist states sought – through the tools of the scientific/medical/psychiatric apparatus – to normalize heterosexual marriage and reproductive heterosex to service the capitalist economy. Therefore, capitalism depends on identity-based oppression (forcing people into binary heterosexual orientation and gender roles, and pathologizing other possible configurations as mental illness). Hence, the choice to adopt a queer sexual or gender identity constitutes a challenge to an oppressive discourse, and ultimately a challenge to the patriarchy and to capitalism.
2. View that while sexual orientations and genders might have biological contributing causes, queer orientation/genders are constituted by a politically motivated choice to adopt a queer identity label to oppose hegemonic binaries. To use asexuality as an example, queer theorists have variously defined asexuality as a form of committed celibacy that women may adopt to oppose the patriarchy, and have critiqued AVEN's "born this way, not a choice" rhetoric because it limits asexuals to self-identify according to the "truth" fixed by an innate biological quality, thus leaving asexuals prisoners to a scientific ideology, and therefore subject to state regulation and control.

2. Intersectionality: People are discriminated against through the intersection of oppressive discourses, and consideration of these intersections should be given priority for contemporary identity politics. To use an asexuality-related example, so far queer theorists have given a lot of attention to the intersection of asexuality and disability, arguing that asexuality activists who seek legitimacy by denying that asexuality is a disability are employing an oppressive discourse of "ableness", while disability activists who seek to oppose cultural assumptions that disabled people are desexualized by claiming that these individuals share in an innate sexuality are employing an oppressive discourse of "compulsory sexuality", such that each group of activists discriminates against the other, and that asexuals with disabilities are doubly discriminated against. Likewise, use of the term "sexual" within the asexual community to refer to people who are off the asexual spectrum is controversial because some people argue that doing so employs an oppressive discourse against people of colour who are oversexualized in the media.

Main Criticisms:
1. Appropriation of identities by left-wing academics for political purposes.
2. Failure to use empirical evidence, with implication that queer theory fails to account for the lived experiences of people who are actually queer.
3. Implausibility of the notion that adopting queer identity labels presents a serious challenge to the capitalist system.
4. Observation that sexual orientations and sex/gender distinctions are manifest in animal behaviour, and therefore cannot be entirely socially constructed. Queer theorists can accept the existence of biological components while still arguing that the choice to adopt labels and form communities constitutes the orientation or gender identity. However, this leaves queer theorists vulnerable to #1 above, to wit that they have a selective focus on the socially constructed aspects over the biological aspects because of their political agenda.
5. Failure to provide normative ethical justification. Queer theorists work with the assumption that claiming an identity entails certain entitlements, without defending this assumption. Furthermore, this approach pushes society in a more divisive direction, since claiming a queer identity becomes the primary tool for achieving political legitimacy, thus creating a discourse of "victim" versus "privilege" (whereby choosing heterosexual and binary male/female identities upholds an oppressive discourse, while queer identities represent the politically progressive discursive rebels), and raising questions about whether queer theory has become more oppressive than the discourses it attempts to challenge.

[Lonemathsytoothbrushthief]

Since I found an article which enlightened me to the diversity of LGBT+ history, I wanted to post this here though it's indirectly linked: I was looking for the history of butch/femme identities outside of lesbian circles(since I was arguing with someone getting exclusionist about the use of these terms, and given the fairly widespread use of femme in trans circles it irked me), and this article summarises stuff I didn't know about, also on LGBT+ people of colour in history, it's really awesome. But there's also the fact that femme is a term with connections to trans history too, which I love.

https://intomore.com/into/A-Brief-His-and-Herstory-of-Butch-And-Femme/ccdfe298b3834c85

[FaerieFate]

I don't know much about gender, but on the topic of sexuality, I thought it was common knowledge that homosexuality was practiced in other species? When I say that, I'm not saying, "Other species can be gay." I'm saying, "A lion will have sex with a male if it's feeling it, or it'll have sex with a female if it's feeling it." That knowledge doesn't necessarily mean certain animals are "homosexual" or "heteroesexual". They just do what they want.

 

For instance I have cats. One of my male cats likes to try to mount the other male cats. Mom says it's a dominance thing, but is it really? Other male cats I've had when they want to be dominant they just beat up the other male cats, not try to mount them. Note: My cats are fixed.

[ThaHoward]

Sex is rooted in biology. That is 100% certain. My sex is not rooted in my culture (observation, all cultures have the same sexes because they are human) just as my skin color isn't defined by my culture either, but biology. 

 

The sun is the sun as defined by natural laws, not human perception and values. 

[scarletlatitude]

On 3/13/2018 at 12:24 PM, FaerieFate said:

I don't know much about gender, but on the topic of sexuality, I thought it was common knowledge that homosexuality was practiced in other species? When I say that, I'm not saying, "Other species can be gay." I'm saying, "A lion will have sex with a male if it's feeling it, or it'll have sex with a female if it's feeling it." That knowledge doesn't necessarily mean certain animals are "homosexual" or "heteroesexual". They just do what they want.

 

I think that's the whole point. We know such a thing exists in other species so our thoughts on it (whether it's "bad" or whatever) are all cultural. 

[scarletlatitude]

On 3/11/2018 at 2:11 PM, SpeakoftheDevil said:

I also love this video on the subject: 

Just wanna say... that girl has some kickin eyeliner. Quite impressive.  

 

(sorry for the double post mods... it wouldn't let me edit)

[Celyn: The Lutening]

*Squeals because as an androgynous person I really looove this thread* Yah, gender isn't real, I do what I want, take that, false binary!

[Entropic]

On 3/14/2018 at 12:28 AM, ThaHoward said:

Sex is rooted in biology. That is 100% certain. My sex is not rooted in my culture (observation, all cultures have the same sexes because they are human) just as my skin color isn't defined by my culture either, but biology. 

 

The sun is the sun as defined by natural laws, not human perception and values. 

I really don't follow you because at the most fundamental level, what is sex? Nature doesn't care to give animal anatomy a name but humans do. Humans are also innately cultural and every human being exists as a part of society. Naturally everything humans do is also viewed through the lens of the social settings that we exist within, and when those social settings create persistent beliefs among different individuals within the same social group, we can begin to call it culture. 

 

All that you think about the world, the fact that you think at all, is a result of culture and cultural beliefs. We communicate through culture. 

 

This is different from simply acknowledging the fact that something exists but when we try to make sense of that thing, then we innately begin to project our own understanding of the world onto that thing and that understanding is always supported by culture. 

[Knight of Cydonia]

On 3/31/2018 at 9:50 AM, Entropic said:

I really don't follow you because at the most fundamental level, what is sex? Nature doesn't care to give animal anatomy a name but humans do. Humans are also innately cultural and every human being exists as a part of society. Naturally everything humans do is also viewed through the lens of the social settings that we exist within, and when those social settings create persistent beliefs among different individuals within the same social group, we can begin to call it culture. 

 

All that you think about the world, the fact that you think at all, is a result of culture and cultural beliefs. We communicate through culture. 

 

This is different from simply acknowledging the fact that something exists but when we try to make sense of that thing, then we innately begin to project our own understanding of the world onto that thing and that understanding is always supported by culture. 

Just because humans are cultural beings doesn't mean that anatomical names and classifications are necessarily influenced by culture as well. You don't need culture to tell you that there are factual biological differences seen in the kinds of organisms that we have arbitrarily classified as "male" and "female", whether human or otherwise. And yes, of course there are exceptions to any sex classification system. But these are exceptions for a reason, and the existence of them doesn't mean that the classification system is unusable or unscientific. I don't see a problem with saying that humans have two arms, two legs, two hands, two feet, 8 fingers, 2 thumbs, 10 toes, etc etc etc... and it's not like the fact that some people have 6 toes on each foot or never developed two arms or had a leg amputated means they're not a human, or that those general basic properties of a human should be considered invalid!

 

I would also disagree with your broader statement that in trying to make sense of things we are necessarily influenced by culture. That may be true for some things (e.g. our interpretation of history, a piece of artwork, music...) but I don't see how it's true for most science. What does culture have to say about the number of electrons in an atom? The acceleration due to gravity at any given point on the Earth's surface? The expansion rate of our universe?

[Entropic]

On 4/2/2018 at 8:56 PM, Knight of Cydonia said:

Just because humans are cultural beings doesn't mean that anatomical names and classifications are necessarily influenced by culture as well. You don't need culture to tell you that there are factual biological differences seen in the kinds of organisms that we have arbitrarily classified as "male" and "female", whether human or otherwise.

Giving something an anatomical name is vastly different from acknowledging that we can recognize physiological differences among individuals; I already addressed this:
 

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This is different from simply acknowledging the fact that something exists but when we try to make sense of that thing, then we innately begin to project our own understanding of the world onto that thing and that understanding is always supported by culture. 

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And yes, of course there are exceptions to any sex classification system. But these are exceptions for a reason, and the existence of them doesn't mean that the classification system is unusable or unscientific.

Then you don't seem to understand the claims that I make: I am not talking about what is scientific or not or whether a system of classification is usable or not, but I am talking about how we innately understand something in and of itself: I am talking about concepts and ideas, ideology, not definitions and facts. As soon as you choose to give something a name, you frame that within the context of culture because you frame it within the context of language and language is the means we use to communicate ideas about the world. In simpler terms, we can for example distinguish between scientific paradigms that also explain different modes of thought in how to approach the same object we are trying to understand. The fact that we can, and will, understand something such as gender and sex differently points all  the more to the fact that no, there is no truly objective way to understand them. 

 

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I don't see a problem with saying that humans have two arms, two legs, two hands, two feet, 8 fingers, 2 thumbs, 10 toes, etc etc etc... and it's not like the fact that some people have 6 toes on each foot or never developed two arms or had a leg amputated means they're not a human, or that those general basic properties of a human should be considered invalid!

Because when you begin to call an object an arm rather than simply observing that it is an object which exists, you also begin to make ideological claims of what is a human, what is a man, what is a woman and so on, and when people do not fit those ideological definitions you are no longer asserting that something simply exists, but you are normatively defining them as well. Again, there is a fundamental difference that you can acknowledge that you observe X as opposed to saying that X is an arm over a leg. Additionally, I am not saying that we should stop defining the physiological properties of human beings, but when it comes to gender and sex, those properties are actually quite arbitrary and do not encompass every way of what it means to be human. However, this is exactly how those categories are used i.e. to exclude people from their right to be acknowledge as human such as when doctors perform surgeries on small children to have their genitalia fit their idea of male vs female or when people call transgender folks "freaks" by virtue of simply being trans. 

 

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I would also disagree with your broader statement that in trying to make sense of things we are necessarily influenced by culture. That may be true for some things (e.g. our interpretation of history, a piece of artwork, music...) but I don't see how it's true for most science. What does culture have to say about the number of electrons in an atom? The acceleration due to gravity at any given point on the Earth's surface? The expansion rate of our universe?

Science is absolutely a cultural construct insofar it contains various ideological beliefs in how to make sense of our experiences and the world around us. This is why there are various scientific paradigms from which you can understand the same subject to choose from, or why philosophy which modern science is built upon, is so disparate and does not know any real way in how to prove whether there is an objective reality or not and whether this objective reality can be objectively perceived or not. Consider the fact that I am writing this from an ideological perspective and you a materialistic one: these are two very different ways in how to understand and frame the same subject, and as much as you can argue that you think objectivism and materialism are valid ways to interpret the world, it fundamentally is just that; an interpretation. Not everyone understands reality the same way you do and when a large number of people reify and take such an interpretation as objective truth, that is when we can begin to call it culture. That you believe objectivism to be objective is something instilled by culture itself because somewhere at some point in time, believe began to develop this belief to be true. 

 

Do not confuse the acknowledgement and belief in an objective reality to be equivalent to science. Science, in its simplest form, is simply the desire to know (that is the meaning of the word itself: to know). How do I know something? The various scientific methodologies are ways to try to tackle this question including how to verify our knowledge as real and something beyond the self. Some scientific disciplines such as the natural sciences have long held a bias (or scientific paradigm) towards an idea where the study of the natural world is objective and has thusly developed methodologies and languages to support such an underlying idea, whereas other disciplines such as the humanities may incorporate more ideological and subjectivist ways to make sense of reality.

 

And while it is definitely valid to understand the world in an objectivist way, I am also largely of the belief that we live in an objective reality that we can objectively study, I also recognize that superimposed on that objectivity are layers upon layers of subjectivity as created by ourselves. When I say that someone is a "man", I imply various things about that person ranging from their set of genitalia, from their upbringing, from the way they socialize, from how they see other people, from secondary sex characteristics and so on and so forth. Modern biology is only now realizing the limitations of defining the human sex based off karyotype as we keep discovering that human sex and sexual development is far more complicated than existing on a spectrum of male and female. 

 

Acknowledgement of reality does not just contain naming reality, but to update the meaning of those names when we learn more about it. 

 

 

[RoseGoesToYale]

On 3/31/2018 at 12:50 PM, Entropic said:

I really don't follow you because at the most fundamental level, what is sex? Nature doesn't care to give animal anatomy a name but humans do.

 

On 3/11/2018 at 2:11 PM, SpeakoftheDevil said:

I also love this video on the subject: 

 

Holy flippin' pancakes, this is totally what I was trying to do in the other thread: get people to question the concept of biological sex! Question it! I was even prepared to break out the Gender Trouble, but I got to depressed to go further.

 

I am a failure at sociology (and language). I shall never broach it again.

[scarletlatitude]

On 5/11/2018 at 11:51 AM, DylanParker said:

Recently I worked on one research project and I happened to read a lot of articles on the subject of panpsychism.
Personally, I support the theory of the professor of philosophy from the New York University, David Chalmers. He argues that there are two points of view: materialism or dualism.
The materialist approach asserts that consciousness is an exclusive product of physical matter. And according to the dualists, consciousness is in no way connected with physical matter. There are quite a lot of different arguments on this subject.
On this site, there are many different books that I really recommend to read  https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/panpsychism

 

Oooooo will read. Thanks!

[Kitteη χ]

On 3/11/2018 at 2:11 PM, SpeakoftheDevil said:

 

 

This is certainly an interesting topic. It would seem to me that the question of if biological sex is a social construct depends on the nitpicky details of how you define it. Is it just based on chromosomes? The genitals you were born with? The genitals you have currently?

 

But regardless of whether biological sex itself is a social construct, I would agree that its perceived importance or relevance is a social construct. People can be categorized by something, but that doesn't mean its a meaningful distinction. It's kind of like eye color, I think. Eye color itself isn't a social construct, and people can be categorized by it. But at the same time, it clearly isn't a meaningful distinction, and is completely irrelevant to anything else.

[Entropic]

On 5/17/2018 at 2:45 PM, Kraken X said:

This is certainly an interesting topic. It would seem to me that the question of if biological sex is a social construct depends on the nitpicky details of how you define it. Is it just based on chromosomes? The genitals you were born with? The genitals you have currently?

 

But regardless of whether biological sex itself is a social construct, I would agree that its perceived importance or relevance is a social construct. People can be categorized by something, but that doesn't mean its a meaningful distinction. It's kind of like eye color, I think. Eye color itself isn't a social construct, and people can be categorized by it. But at the same time, it clearly isn't a meaningful distinction, and is completely irrelevant to anything else.

I don't think there's a "nitpicky difference" in how you define sex which makes it a social construct or not; the real crux is philosophical where biologism essentialism is at the root of assuming that we are our biology i.e. our biology defines who we are. 

 

But that itself belies a bigger problem not just with essentialism, but nature of categorization itself, because there is a vast difference from defining what a vagina is to ascribing that a vagina defines a person into being a vagina person as opposed to say, a penis person. An object cannot and should not be ascribed a conscience because it is not, nor should an object in the same way come to define the entirety of who someone is. And while a person can be understood as the sum of their parts, it is made very clear that identity is not static but something mutable. 

 

A weakness of the argument provided in the linked video is that it fails to address the main argument people have when they counter this rhetoric i.e. surgery is not a valid way to consider something to have been intrinsically changed because it is a form of cosmetics, a makeup applied to distort the "true nature" of the object, but the object remains as it were but is presented in a different form. This also fuels the argument that trans people are trying to dupe others into thinking they are the gender they identify as because they are dressing up to be something they are not. 

 

The real issue then, has nothing to do with what "sex" is defined as because everyone can agree on that a vagina looks different from a penis and that they are two different types of sexual characteristics, but how the existence of a vagina or a penis is superimposed to define the nature of a person's being. This is then conflated into a bigger issue of what gender is understood to be, where these people also define gender to be equal to the presence of reproductive organs and therefore people cannot and should not identify as anything else but what reproductive organs they are born with because those organs define who they are. 

 

This also ties into a larger feminist critique as provided by Simone de Beauvoir among others who question the idea that a gender identity must be equal to a sexual role which the above reasoning feeds into. I therefore also do not think the video provided is a very good critique as to why sex really is a social construct because it doesn't actually tackle the deeper philosophical problem of the biological essentialism which underlies the idea that you are your gender you are born as. Instead it tries to provide a different approach where we should see the body as mutable because we can change the way our bodies look and function, but she still (unfortunately, as it undermines her argument) recognizes that people are born a certain way. If she wants to make a meaningful and much more logically sound argument why gender is a social construct we need to address the fact that while yes, people can be born a certain way, being born a certain way does not need to set an antecedent as to who a person will become later in life. 

 

Biological essentialism therefore follows a very linear and simplistic line of reasoning which is something as follows:

 

Every person is born with a certain sex

Sex is an integral part of human functioning and reproduction and defines your role in society

You are a person, so therefore you are born with a certain sex

Your sex therefore defines your human functioning and role in society

 

What needs to be addressed is the idea that "sex is an integral part of human functioning and reproduction and defines your role in society", but she doesn't. Instead she talks about how you can change your body into looking like something else, but it doesn't address the idea that people are still born a certain way and it is how they are born which defines who they are, not how they later come to look like in life. 

 

I also genuinely believe that 99% of everyone who argue that chrosomones define someone's sex do because it's an attempt to backpeddle to an immutable category because they do realize that how someone present themselves is not always congruent with what their supposed sexual and therefore also social role, is meant to be. The only way to therefore hold on to that form of reasoning is to latch on to a material object about a person which is something people cannot consciously change. And while she's right that chromosomes in the end say little to nothing about a person except you were born a certain way, the proper way to address the argument from a logical point of view is to recognize that it is erroneous to assume that people's identities are 1) sex should define someone's sexual and social role and 2) this is immutable. 

 

Any form of essentialist thinking is problematic because while it is often held as some kind of objective and unquestionable and often common sense sort of truth, it is far from it. The inherent problem of essentialism is that you cannot actually objectively define it because it is subjective and lies in the eye of the beholder, hence people can change its meaning (e.g. when people backpeddle back to chromosomes being the defining aspect of biological sex), because it strives towards a subjective ideal as opposed to anything we can objectively measure in the material world. No matter what people claim, you can't actually measure sex as you can just draw an arbitrary line on what female vs male is defined to be, and it is here the argument about how for example hormonal levels or secondary sex characteristics are unreliable that it begins to make a bit more sense, because if we recognize that male and female are not separate categories but contain degrees of the same traits, the idea of what male and female is actually begins to break down. It  doesn't exist. And it is then we can truly say that male and female are constructed categories because as much as people may try to create scales to measure levels of maleness vs femaleness, you will always have people who will not neatly fit into either category. And it is here we see how subjective it is because if they were truly immutable and separate categories, we could always with absolute certainty say that that's male or female, but we cannot. 

 

In other words, there's a vast difference when we talk about the idea of sex vs observing actual sexual characteristics in a person. The issue is that people who argue for biological essentialism is that they do not believe that they are presenting an ideal (in the philosophical sense), and confuse it with the objective reality that we can observe around us. 

 

[Entropic]

On 5/12/2018 at 6:44 AM, RoseGoesToYale said:

 

Holy flippin' pancakes, this is totally what I was trying to do in the other thread: get people to question the concept of biological sex! Question it! I was even prepared to break out the Gender Trouble, but I got to depressed to go further.

 

I am a failure at sociology (and language). I shall never broach it again.

I really wouldn't despair that much as the philosophical errors when approaching the subject can be very difficult to tackle unless you are adept at understanding the nuances of the arguments and why they occur as they do. 

[Karst]

To be perfectly honest, getting into the philosophical implications of gender and sexuality gives me a headache.  

This is why I'm a geologist, not a philosopher.

 

By the way, I'm pretty sure the person who posted above me is a bot.

[Jusey1]

My problem with this is that biological gender is a real thing. You cannot say it doesn't exists because it is an important block in the foundation of society. You cannot simply survive in the long term as a society without people actually doing their biological role. On top of that, our biological gender does have an effect on our mind, DNA, moods, etc which is why there are differences between males and females patterns.

I'm all open to talking about mental genders, self definitions, and other aspects but we cannot just throw out biological science that has been proven and is very easily viewable.

[Celyn: The Lutening]

@Jusey1 You mean biological sex, not gender, which is a social construct (or, if I'm feeling controversial or pissed off at gender, not real).

And while FOR SURE hormones affect our moods, the scientific consensus is that are no significant difference between male and female minds.

[Karst]

To add to what @Celyn said, the fact that intersex variations are surprisingly common throws another wrench into the idea of a perfect biological binary.  Roughly 0.05 to 1.7% of all human beings are born with some degree of physical or genetic ambiguity.  To put that number in perspective, the percentage of people born with red hair is also about 1% of the worldwide population.

[Skycaptain]

@Ardoise was that a typo? Do you mean gender ambiguity? 

[Evil]

Egads.

[Celyn: The Lutening]

41 minutes ago, Skycaptain said:

@Ardoise was that a typo? Do you mean gender ambiguity? 

Nah, "genetic ambiguity" makes sense in this context - like sex chromosomal variants ( most notable XXY, XO)

[Karst]

16 hours ago, Celyn said:

Nah, "genetic ambiguity" makes sense in this context - like sex chromosomal variants ( most notable XXY, XO)

That's what I meant.  There are a handful of genetic conditions that can give a person chromosomes other than XY or XX.

[Jusey1]

Okay, I gotta ask though... Can this be called something else? I don't get why people want to use an insulting and terrible word such as the Q- word... Like ,can you imagine if someone calls a theory on African Americans the "N-Word Theory"? Holy smokes it would not be tolerated.

[Karst]

@Jusey1, some people are trying to reclaim the word as a positive or neutral term.

[Celyn: The Lutening]

Yeah I kind of agree with @Jusey1 that it's still a very touchy term among a lot of the community, and though I do want it to be fully reclaimed it's not there yet. And I don't want us younger generation to be constantly using this term that was used to hurt the elders of the community. 

What else would we call that idea?

[Jusey1]

2 hours ago, Ardoise said:

@Jusey1, some people are trying to reclaim the word as a positive or neutral term.

"Reclaim"? It was ALWAYS a bad word! Borderline BAD!

 

59 minutes ago, Celyn said:

and though I do want it to be fully reclaimed

It should never be claimed in the first place. It's a terrible word and there is no need to use it. I refuse to be called strange, spoil, ruin, etc. Period. If someone calls me by this word, I would slap them for it because of how negative and bad it is by it's very definition and proper usage of the word. There is no borderline claiming that needs to be done. There was a very bad reason why people started using it to insult the LGBT+ community, and the LGBT+ community should have never tried to use it positively simply because of it's very definition.

I am being very strict here... If you really want to adopt that word as a positive thing, then you should also do the same with the N- word for the African American community as well, and the W- word for females... If you truly believe that a nasty word can be used positively, than allow all those nasty words find a positive use... Give me a good reason why all of those nasty words should be properly adopted by their communities and used positively and then you might change my mind.

 

1 hour ago, Celyn said:

What else would we call that idea?

You're literally calling it strange, spoil, ruin, etc right now by using the Q- word... I'm personally not that good at names. I would just call it Gender Theory for now but I refuse to use a negative word.

 

1 hour ago, Celyn said:

And I don't want us younger generation to be constantly using this term that was used to hurt the elders of the community.

I'm actually 24 (almost 25). I should be considered as part of the younger generation and the word itself was never really used against me. However, I know the official definition of the word and has educated myself on the community as a whole. Which is why I refuse to accept the word because it is so vile by it's own definition. A garbage level word that should be trashed or used very sparingly as an in-joke between friends and nothing more. Not a public or community wide accepted word.