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Understanding Gender and Gender Identity


Kasseb

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11 minutes ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

Gender being a social/cultural construct is entirely up fro debate. That's not the purpose of the thread.

I've never heard anyone who completely dismissed the cultural construct argument, I have heard some who pair it with biological arguments though. Also, how do you explain Hijra and Burrnesha and other genders?

11 minutes ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

I don't find the cultural arguments really convincing, personally. I think that since cultures can be wrong, it having been done is not a valid basis to go off of.

Cultures can be wrong, I am not saying they are always correct, but the definition used in my Webster's dictionary (and you seem very much to like dictionary definitions) says in excerpt, "gender ... refer to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones." The idea that it is at least semi-dependent on cultural differences is right in the definition.

 

I know you said you do not want to debate, but I am not trying to debate (although if you wanted to debate I do enjoy debating). Rather it seems odd that you want us to defend ourselves, then you simply shoot down our ideas without any further explanation or defense of your own position. Sure, we might be wrong but even if you can prove us wrong does not prove you right.

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8 minutes ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

I don't find the cultural arguments really convincing, personally. I think that since cultures can be wrong, it having been done is not a valid basis to go off of. But thank you for the post.

There's no such thing as right or wrong when it comes to culture, because you're judging it from your own experience (i.e. culture) so it's not a neutral judgement (therefore tainted). You can argue that a culture can be morally right or wrong based on your own sets of beliefs, but again, those differ.

 

 

7 minutes ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

The purpose of this thread is not to incite debate. Rather, for me to find some material to better understand what you guys consider gender to be.

Coming in here with an opinion that differs from the majority of the people on this forum will incite a debate regardless of your intentions, especially when you seem to only value your own judgement to form an opinion and not actually relying on people with different experiences than yours.

 

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Just now, Autumn McJavabean said:

Because, logic is better when it comes to viewing the world than people's feelings. If feelings trump logic, who knows how that slippery slope might take us.

Even if we consider logic to be superior to emotion, we can still avoid a great deal of suffering and trouble by taking others' feelings into account.

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2 minutes ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

Because, logic is better when it comes to viewing the world than people's feelings. If feelings trump logic, who knows how that slippery slope might take us.

This world is governed more by feelings than facts, so dismissive feelings isn't furthering any discussion, and the slippery slope argument is getting really old when the only thing people are doing is trying to better express themselves and not arguing for discrimination or anything negative for anyone.

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1 minute ago, DryRain said:

There's no such thing as right or wrong when it comes to culture, because you're judging it from your own experience (i.e. culture) so it's not a neutral judgement (therefore tainted). You can argue that a culture can be morally right or wrong based on your own sets of beliefs, but again, those differ.

 

 

Coming in here with an opinion that differs from the majority of the people on this forum will incite a debate regardless of your intentions, especially when you seem to only value your own judgement to form an opinion and not actually relying on people with different experiences than yours.

 

Actually, there is. A culture can have a set of beliefs that are still wrong. 

 

You're strawmanning my position. I'm not only valuing my opinions or judgements, but when people ask, I try to explain. I am relying on other people's experiences, hence the entire point of this thread to get people's judgements, opinions and beliefs.

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3 minutes ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

Because, logic is better when it comes to viewing the world than people's feelings.

While I agree with you, and just having feelings do not a sound argument make, it might come across as if you are trying to dismiss any criticism of your own opinions by blaming others feelings. That in itself is a slippery slope.

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Just now, DryRain said:

This world is governed more by feelings than facts, so dismissive feelings isn't furthering any discussion, and the slippery slope argument is getting really old when the only thing people are doing is trying to better express themselves and not arguing for discrimination or anything negative for anyone.

I disagree, but believe what you will.

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1 minute ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

I disagree, but believe what you will.

Disagree on which part ?

 

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1 hour ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

Sex refers strictly to a binary and only a binary exists via current scientific knowledge and evidence.

I don't see how science could justify such a strict binary view.

 

If you look at the genetic background behind sex it is more diverse than what we could expect. Everyone should know that men are usually born with XY chromosomes and women XX. However there is also XXX, XXY and XYY individuals. Furthermore, genes are only master plans that our body can either implement or not, express them strongly or not so much. This will affect the anatomy and hormonal state of the subject, even for people with an 'obvious genetic sex. Some babys are born with sexual organs both male/female. If medical sex can be just the physician playing heads or tails I think this is silly to put too much faith in this administrative requirement. One should rather stay open to gender as determined by the individual himself.

 

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4 minutes ago, Aebt-Ætheling said:

While I agree with you, and just having feelings do not a sound argument make, it might come across as if you are trying to dismiss any criticism of your own opinions by blaming others feelings. That in itself is a slippery slope.

I respectfully disagree.

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5 minutes ago, DryRain said:

This world is governed more by feelings than facts, so dismissive feelings isn't furthering any discussion

This

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Just now, Autumn McJavabean said:

I respectfully disagree.

You are free to, but I believe you have just fallen into the trap you yourself laid. You have again dismissed a statement without any logical backing. Why do you disagree with that statement and with previous statements?

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Just now, Aebt-Ætheling said:

You are free to, but I believe you have just fallen into the trap you yourself laid. You have again dismissed a statement without any logical backing. Why do you disagree with that statement and with previous statements?

I'm not, I'm just not arguing. Read the OP.

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Just now, Autumn McJavabean said:

This

Literally any way that's ever happened, the concept of countries itself, and any conflict at all would not exist if the world was governed by facts and not feelings.

The very concept of racism is rooted in feelings, as it is a fact that whoever a racist is hating on is the same species as them, and it would be more beneficial (and therefore logical) for them to cooperate with that person rather than hating on them.

I can apply that to any conflict of any kind. Logic & facts, while nice and I WISH people would actually go with it, does not drive people, and people drive the world.

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1 minute ago, DryRain said:

Literally any way that's ever happened, the concept of countries itself, and any conflict at all would not exist if the world was governed by facts and not feelings.

The very concept of racism is rooted in feelings, as it is a fact that whoever a racist is hating on is the same species as them, and it would be more beneficial (and therefore logical) for them to cooperate with that person rather than hating on them.

I can apply that to any conflict of any kind. Logic & facts, while nice and I WISH people would actually go with it, does not drive people, and people drive the world.

I don't think you're getting that me agreeing or disagreeing is pointless here. I don't care about arguing these points, I just want someone to explain what these terms mean and are defined to them. If I wanted to argue the point, to defend myself, or explain why you're dead wrong on certain points you've made throughout this thread, I'd put this in the Hot Box.

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For those who haven't, or do not think it's been addressed well, please address the OP. Everything else is moot.

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Just now, Autumn McJavabean said:

I don't think you're getting that me agreeing or disagreeing is pointless here. I don't care about arguing these points, I just want someone to explain what these terms mean and are defined to them. If I wanted to argue the point, to defend myself, or explain why you're dead wrong on certain points you've made throughout this thread, I'd put this in the Hot Box.

I would be curious about what you think I'm dead wrong about.

Regardless, I guess I've answered your question in my original comment, so I'll stop commenting now.

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1 minute ago, DryRain said:

I would be curious about what you think I'm dead wrong about.

Regardless, I guess I've answered your question in my original comment, so I'll stop commenting now. 

If you're curious, please direct your attention to my direct messages. I really, really want this thread to stay on topic.  Thank you.

 

Otherwise I see a mod or admin locking it like my book thread and it thus does not help me or anyone. I appreciate your concern, I love that you are strong willed on this topic, but I just want to know people's views. That is all.

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1 minute ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

I'm just not arguing.

You might say that, but you have dismissed all the previous statements, which in itself is arguing. On top of that even when you dismissed them, against the no-arguing request you yourself mentioned, you did not provide reasons why you dismissed them, even after asking us to provide the burden of evidence. Logically if you dismiss someone's statement, especially if your purpose is to educate, which you explicitly state it is, you must provide evidence. When I pushed this point that we do the work just to be dismissed with the wave of a hand you fell back to saying you are not going to respond as you don't want to argue. If you break your own rule you can't go run and hide behind it whenever you feel like it. As you yourself said and many agreed, feelings do not make logical reasons

 

If you didn't want to argue it might have been advantageous to not argue against everyone else's points. You can't say no arguing, and then proceed to argue, and then hide behind your original rules when we ask for your reasoning.

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1 minute ago, Aebt-Ætheling said:

You might say that, but you have dismissed all the previous statements, which in itself is arguing. On top of that even when you dismissed them, against the no-arguing request you yourself mentioned, you did not provide reasons why you dismissed them, even after asking us to provide the burden of evidence. Logically if you dismiss someone's statement, especially if your purpose is to educate, which you explicitly state it is, you must provide evidence. When I pushed this point that we do the work just to be dismissed with the wave of a hand you fell back to saying you are not going to respond as you don't want to argue. If you break your own rule you can't go run and hide behind it whenever you feel like it. As you yourself said and many agreed, feelings do not make logical reasons

 

If you didn't want to argue it might have been advantageous to not argue against everyone else's points. You can't say no arguing, and then proceed to argue, and then hide behind your original rules when we ask for your reasoning.

No, I provided my view. I didn't argue at all. I did not dismiss anything other than people arguing if I was right or wrong. Because I frankly do not care what you think about my views, I just want to know people's views. I never dismissed anyone's views on gender and gender identity, which was the entire topic of the thread. Please prevent from going off topic. Thanks.

 

I never provided real counters. Do you have anything to say relating to the topic? As for dismissing, I only dismissed those who insisted on arguing with me. There were times I defended myself, but that is entirely different. 

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Also, I can hide behind my rules when I know it's getting off-topic, as I predicted. Please stay on topic. Thank you. EDIT: I just reviewed the thread, I never really argued back, other than explained something that might have been vague. 

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Anthracite_Impreza

Bottom line: You can't understand gender through logic, because it is entirely an internal, subjective experience.

 

Also, what's so fucking wrong with emotions and feelings? Life would be pretty shit and boring without them. By all means stick to logic when doing maths, but emotions are an essential part of life and dismissing them, in itself, is illogical.

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Calligraphette_Coe

The problem with finding a certainty about gender identity is, I think, similar to the this philosophical conundrum:

 

https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/problem-other-minds

 

The Problem of Other Minds is a classic, still has philosphers at each others' philosophical throats. 

 

As for feelings not being logical, what logic impels a parent to take a bullet to save their child? It's not logical if you look at it from the perspective of Self-Preservation. I could be quite logical if viewed from the perspective of saving one's contribution to the gene pool.

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I'm having a not this again moment, there has been a debate about the wordplay involved here before. It didn't end well. 

 

Just be mindful of people's orientations and how they self-identify.

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@Autumn McJavabean, I think you're wrong. 

 

I could stop there, but I'll still try to write something logical enough that it won't be trivial to dismiss it. 

 

So you seem to think that gender is inherently binary because your dictionary only works with male and female. All right. Biologically, most humans can be classified as either male or female, and originally, gender was built around that. So it's hard not to work without using male and female as the basis. 

 

But, the definition of a binary system is: a system involving only two elements. No in-between, not both or neither. Binary gender is either ''purely male'' (100% of male, 0% of female, and here using fractions of male and female doesn't even make sense. Also, the word pure isn't morally connoted here.) or ''purely female''. Either 0 or 1.

 

Some, not all, non-binary genders are defined in relation to this binary system. For example, ''a little bit of both'', ''sometimes one and sometimes the other'', et cætera. It may look like it still belongs with the binary stuff, but, by definition of a binary system, it can't. The binary system only comprises ''pure male'' and ''pure female''. Therefore, what I just described can't be binary.  

Biological disgression inside:

Spoiler

Edit: besides, everything in nature is hardly ever binary. Sexual reproduction started out with only 1 sex, with all individuals producing identical, compatible gametes. Then two groups started following two different, opposite trends, and we ended up with the 2 sexes we have now. But in nature, nothing is quite absolute. There are too many variations to decide that the binary model sums up everything going on. There are hermaphrodite species, of course, and some species with more than 2 sex types. Even within one species, like ours, all individuals of one AGAB are far from identical, there are differences in hormone levels and anatomy everywhere, and the line between what's considered normal variation and intersex is blurry and arbitrary. Therefore, sex isn't completely binary.

 

There are also people who don't use that binary to describe themselves. They can use a ''third gender'', whatever that is, or the absence of gender. Some prefer to reject association with this binary system. If doing so alleviates their dysphoria whereas neither of the binary gender does, you cannot dismiss that without VERY solid, infallibly backed up arguments. But you won't, because you said you weren't interested in arguing. For the record, gender dysphoria is a scientifically backed up mental condition, and the only way to treat it that was proven to work is encouraging the person with their gender identity and enabling them to modify their body, presentation, social status etc according to their gender identity. There ARE people who experienced gender dysphoria with both binary genders, and for whom only a non-binary gender worked. This isn't my opinion, it's a fact. I hope this educated you as you wished.

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Ms. Carolynne
15 hours ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

This post is NOT to be a debate, rather, I'm looking to be educated on the ideology – yes, it's an ideology as it's a collection of views/beliefs – that many of you have to better understand it. I can't find myself agreeing with certian terms of notions that I can't fully grasp. So, logically, I can't agree or disagree completely. 

 

Here's my current stance, please do not entice an argument about if I'm right or wrong, just provide me with information as to why you accept what you accept with logic and reason. I don't want this to turn into a shit show like my last gender thread on my book.

 

  • Gender refers to a binary; male and female.
  • Sex refers strictly to a binary and only a binary exists via current scientific knowledge and evidence.
  • A binary exists.
  • You can't make up a new gender, unless there is scientific evidence supporting the gender. 

If you can contrive a new gender or lack thereof, agender, pangender, sapiogender, demi-gender, etc, what is the basis of this and thus, what is gender to you? For me, I'm defining gender based on the OED (Oxford English Dictionary/Learners Dictionary). How can you be without a gender? What does that mean? 

 

Any information would help me better understand this notion.

 

How do you define gender? How do you differentiate gender and gender identity? 

I feel there are multiple factors to this, some biological, some psychological / neurological, and some sociological.

 

I also feel a lot of it is a bimodal distribution that appears binary if you don't really look into it / purposely exclude outliers. I believe this is where non-binary and intersex people come into the discussion, and part of why they exist. Changing cultural views on gender and what it means also play a role on the sociological part.

 

I don't really have much to add to what has already been said. I second @SithGirl, and agree with what @Galactic Turtle said.

 

14 hours ago, Autumn McJavabean said:

Because, logic is better when it comes to viewing the world than people's feelings. If feelings trump logic, who knows how that slippery slope might take us.

 

This is the crux of the issue, not everything is objective. We're a social species with highly developed emotions capable of abstract thought. There is a huge subjective component to being human and how we interact with the world.

 

Things aren't always as objective and concrete as you'd like them to be, and neither are your own beliefs and opinions, clearly as they were easily contradicted within the first response. Telling @pook that they don't count for some reason is peak mental gymnastics, and denial. How could we possibly explain anything if you refuse to be corrected, and have already decided what our beliefs are before we even bothered explaining? Why even ask if you already believe yourself to be objectively correct?

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I experienced gender in a pretty physical way. I decided I no longer wanted to be purely female, and so I'm no longer: I'm taking testosterone.
 

With T, I'm exposing my body to the androgen responsible for male puberty, normally occurring via testosterone produced by testes. My cells all react as an XY individual would (the Y chromosome carries testes determining factor, which creates testes, which create testosterone; I have intervened at this point in the casual biological chain of events). My body is physiologically masculinized as typical, cis men experience in adolescence.
 

It is no longer biologically female because I am literally undergoing what biological adult maleness consists of. But I've gone through female puberty, so my body has all that too. Therefore, it is a biologically non-binary body.

 

It's outright bizarre to assert a body transformed in this way remains representative of a single biological sex.
 

 

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Calligraphette_Coe
8 hours ago, anisotrophic said:

I experienced gender in a pretty physical way. I decided I no longer wanted to be purely female, and so I'm no longer: I'm taking testosterone.
 

With T, I'm exposing my body to the androgen responsible for male puberty, normally occurring via testosterone produced by testes. My cells all react as an XY individual would (the Y chromosome carries testes determining factor, which creates testes, which create testosterone; I have intervened at this point in the casual biological chain of events). My body is physiologically masculinized as typical, cis men experience in adolescence.
 

It is no longer biologically female because I am literally undergoing what biological adult maleness consists of. But I've gone through female puberty, so my body has all that too. Therefore, it is a biologically non-binary body.

 

It's outright bizarre to assert a body transformed in this way remains representative of a single biological sex.
 

 

It's also about being in abject denial of biochemical reality Newsflash: even if you're Nth degree XX female, you have ::::drumroll:::: testosterone in your body. It's there in small concentrations, but it's there and it's what make one horny at times. Flip side, if you're Nth degree XY male, you have small amounts of estrogen in your body.

 

Then there's the other reality that as you age, the factories for these wondrous chemicals wear down. Because both sexes have both hormones, when that happens, they slowly start to look like each other as they drift to the center of the binary. Cis men discover to their horror that if you slack off too much and eat gain lots of weight, you start developing man boobs.

 

I guess if would be an oversimplification to borrow from a thread in Politics/Science/ Phiolosophy, but sex is nature's way of getting eggs to make more eggs and its chemistry set to put together different combinations in infinite diversity.

 

So if you think there isn't a discontinuous race towards the middle vis-a-vis sex and gender? Nature is waaaay ahead of your opinion. It, in fact, doesn't care about your opinion, it just keeps keeping on.

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It's not even a question of validity. Intersex people undeniably exist. Birth defect or not, ultimately, we don't care as long as the person is healthy. Same with every variation from the norm, including thinking you're neither male nor female. We should make sure such people are healthy, and if that implies accommodating their ''defective'' gender dysphoria, then so be it. 

 

As it has been said, Nature has no ''right'' or ''wrong'', it's only about survival. Helping your species go on, even if you're not procreating yourself. Most of whom you'd call ''misfits'' can do that. And if they don't? Oops, but they're still people, as deserving of respect as any other, and living in their own different way. Nothing can make one of Nature's children inherently wrong. 

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1 hour ago, PoeciMeta said:

accommodating their ''defective'' gender dysphoria

I'm not defective, I'm a shameless biohacker, an early adopter of a gender diverse future! 😄

 

Do you fear this trajectory for humanity, @Autumn McJavabean? Fear is an emotion, it's not rational. 😉

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