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RoareyRaccoon

Answering Some Questions

by
You can find my central argument here:

https://inkbunny.net/journalview.php?id=286266

and here:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24525141/

So, a number of different questions have been put to me over the past week regarding the whole gender subject. I've decided to respond to those questions in a journal rather than have a ton more conversations with different people, all with a bone to pick that nobody bothers to read, leading to yet another few people asking the stuff I've already answered elsewhere, haha. It's unfortunate that people approach you like every argument is in a vacuum, as if it's just you and them and not you and a horde XP.

1) If gender is not a spectrum, how do you explain the existence of trans, non-binary and intersex people?

This usually gets lumped in with the accusation that I am denying trans, N-B people exist and that my opinion is directly leading to harm against those people. Neither of these accusations have any evidence and are ad hominem. Anyway, on to the spectrum thingy. If we want to be super pedantic, gender is a spectrum because it has a range of different data points. The thing is, though, my argument is about what is taught to children about themselves. We know from census data (for example: http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploa... ) that people who do not identify as the gender linked to their biological sex is a tiny minority. I've said <95% because it's generous as hell and doesn't require quibbling over the precision of data sets. If we know for a fact that children will, over 95% of the time, have no trouble with their gender identity whatsoever, then it is outright confusing and wrong to tell them that their gender is on a spectrum. Little kids aren't going to grasp the differences between a bimodal distribution and a spectrum, especially when it seems most adults even have a problem with it. Trans, non-binary and intersex people, of course, do exist. I don't know why trans and non-binary people are the way they are and would never claim to, all I can do is make a guess and say what I think is most likely, which is still just a guess. My guess is that it is a psychological disorder rather than a reflection of a person actually not being a member of the two gender categories. But again, it's a guess, I have no idea. I don't care either, by the way, how people see themselves and how they pursue their own lives is none of my business, if they aren't hurting other people I have no problem with it. But basically, my point is, it is faulty reasoning to beg the question and conclude that the existence of people who do not feel they fit into male or female gender is evidence that gender is a spectrum. There are a number of possible explanations for why people feel the way they feel, not just one. Concluding that the only explanation for non-binary people is that the male/female gender model is false is just asserting as true the very thing one is attempting to demonstrate. Circular reasoning. This is all too complex for young kids, so let them grow up first and have a chance at self-discovery before bombarding them with information that will only confuse them.

2) Cultures throughout history have always recognised the existence of gender identities outside male and female. How can you say that gender is bimodal in the face of this?

The ability of a culture or society to recognise the existence of people who do not fit neatly into male/female gender is, of course, nothing new. What it does not indicate, however, is that those cultures/societies were entirely based on the concept that gender isn't male/female. There are always people who do not fit into descriptive categories, who have physical features different from expected (most of these third gender people were eunuchs) or who live outside the confines of what is considered normal in any given culture. Exceptions tend to prove the rule, so that we recognise when people do not fit a trend because there is actually a trend to which they don't fit. Arguing that people who don't identify as male or female (and that doesn't even include trans people, who are male or female, but just the OPPOSITE one than their birth indicates), by virtue of their existence, proves that culture doesn't see gender as a male/female dichotomy is extremely silly reasoning. It also looks desperate.

3) How does the fact that gender is a bimodal distribution demonstrate that it isn't a spectrum?

Strictly speaking, it doesn't, in the purely technical sense. But gender is not a distribution like, say, political belief is. If we look at the spectrum of political beliefs we will find a huge range of differences across the whole population, with gender this is not the case. If a tiny percentage is said to fall outside of male/female, it does not change the fact that everybody else is male or female. Such a degree of clustering with very little variance is not practically a spectrum. If we want to create social policy and make education decisions based on the idea that gender is a spectrum, then it should be distributed the way politics is, rather than everybody being in one of two categories, aside from like .3%. It's a pedantic, technical argument that isn't significant enough to be a basis for wide-reaching social policy decisions. Kids are boys or girls the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, teaching them their gender is on a spectrum is like teaching an 8 year-old about pythagorean theorem and expecting them to integrate it into their fucking identity. Absolutely stupid.

4) Why don't you just accept that I'm non-binary/that gender is a spectrum? Why do you have to oppose it?

This is a veiled ad hominem attack I've had a bunch of times, essentially implying I'm opposing the gender spectrum narrative because I'm a stubborn asshole, not because I have a point. Anyway, there are actual reasons for my unwavering on this subject. First, I resent the idea of someone else telling me that if I don't agree with their opinion then I'm a bad person for doing so. I resent the idea of someone assuming they're correct, making no argument for it, but demanding I get in line and chant their mantra regardless. Why don't YOU just accept that gender ISN'T a spectrum? Oh, wait. Secondly, I oppose the spectrum concept for moral reasons. Teaching children they are something that does not apply to them is wrong. Thirdly, my refusal to accept a position without evidence is not an endorsement of abusing non-binary people. I detest abuse, I detest harassment, I don't believe anyone should be victimised for how they feel. So the idea that I'm actually endorsing abuse of someone because I don't agree with them is a disgusting use of shaming tactics and guilt to pressure me to change my mind. Not a chance, isn't going to ever happen. Fourthly, it is also implied and has been regularly stated to me that I refuse to consider evidence, I just believe what I believe and ignore everything to the contrary. I have had a massive change of mind in the past 18 months or so. Almost everything I used to believe in collapsed, I used to be in complete acceptance of gender as a spectrum, of socialism in general. I changed my mind when I discovered I was wrong. Saying I'm some ignorant asshole who doesn't listen is complete and utter bullshit, I know it to be bullshit and that's good enough for me. My essential method when it comes to opinions is first: read books and listen to professors/experienced professionals, second: go out and test those ideas by having conversations with others and then see what happens. That's how I roll, I'm the opposite of an ideologue. Finally, I don't just accept that gender is a spectrum because the evidence indicates that it isn't and never will be, I have yet to see a single argument demonstrating that it is.

5) You know nothing about any of this, leave it to the professionals and just fuck off.

This is an appeal to authority, a logical fallacy. If I believe something I argue for it, I make sure I know the arguments for it and I openly state them. If you cannot defend your own beliefs on your own, but instead point to some "professional" who knows the real truth, you're talking about faith. That's what I got from arguing with religious people for a decade, the constant point that "I don't know the answers but if you spoke to an actual scholar and priest he'd be able to wipe the floor with you". If you cannot, yourself, personally argue for your own position then why do you hold it, accept it and demand others respect it? Learn your own shit and argue it, that's what I do and if you don't, don't argue with me. Sure, there are things we accept on faith, there is nothing inherently bad about faith at all. I have faith that, for the most part, the scientific method does its job and the process of peer review has resulted in tangible, real technologies and innovations that we can all see for ourselves. When I see talk about theoretical physics, for example, I have no understanding of it, so I don't favour any point of view on the subject, that's a matter best left to those in the field. But when it comes to gender, I do know enough and I'm confident I know enough to make an actual argument, so I make one. People don't have to agree with me and I don't have to agree with others, but at least come to me with a fucking argument instead of an appeal to authority. I won't accept it.

6) Modern "science" indicates that biological sex is not connected to gender identity.

This is otherwise known as independent variance. If gender and biological sex varied independently, we would not see them correlate at above .95. Correlation does not, indeed, equal causation, but causation is always correlated. If in this case the correlation is not due to one variable causing the other, then some third variable must be causing the other two to correlate so closely. What is that third variable? Dunno about you but I sure as shit can't think of one. Oh wait, yeah, social constructionism. The idea that gender is a social construct and the reason biological sex is so closely correlated with gender is because society enforces it. Now this is actually true in some cultures, totalitarian ones like Islamic cultures, for example. In western societies, though? Scandinavian countries like Norway and Sweden are at the forefront of social constructionist ideology being put into practice, they have done everything they can to cut back on discrimination in the workplace and to equalise people regardless of gender. So what do we find? Amusingly, despite the higher levels of gender equality, the differences of occupational choices between men and women have INCREASED ( https://www.scb.se/contentassets/982742930b774ff49ba5a7... ) you will need to look up the translations of each occupation, but one example is wood plant operator 11% female 89% male). Turns out men and women have different interests and make different choices, despite every effort to remove social coercion (well, they've actually tried to persuade more girls to choose more traditionally "male" career paths, with no fucking success whatsoever). The idea that we are born as blank slates and society simply moulds us is categorically false. Of course we are shaped by our culture but it's to a limited extent, biology and individual personality differences are still the most significant factor. You can do your best to raise a kid to love doing something, but you have no guarantee whatsoever of any success. Just as non-binary people cannot be forced by society to believe they are male or female, society doesn't make people male or female, they just are male or female.

Gender as a concept is a social construction if we get technical, because it is how any given culture interprets the meaning of male and female, in tradition and expectation. But as to which category we loosely fit into, that is of biological determination over 95% of the time. Ergo, biological sex and gender identity are directly related, the variation is simply what a given culture's expectations of gender are. Over 95% will still end up doing what they've always done, be a man or a woman according to their sex in the culture they live in. By the way, a gender role is not a tyranny unless a given society explicitly forces people to conform to them. There's always social pressure to fit in with others, because we are part of communities and communities require shared values. But people being confused about non-conformists is not tyrannical. I grant you that non-conformist people have always been violently persecuted and abused, for virtually any trait one could wish to bring up, but I don't believe in treating people like shit for such reasons. I'm a centrist, liberty-loving, freedom-loving free speech absolutist. There's no room in my beliefs for fucking someone over just for being weird.

7) You advocate keeping kids in the dark about trans and non-binary issues.

I do not. I believe it is a good think to let kids know (when they are teenagers so they can better understand) that trans and non-binary people exist and that it is always wrong to abuse them for being who they are. I believe in the same regarding gay people. What I advocate is not teaching kids their own gender is on a spectrum the same way I wouldn't advocate teaching all kids that they're gay or bisexual. The idea of inserting ones own beliefs about identity into the classrooms of the young makes me balk. It's why I'm a secularist when it comes to religion, I don't like any ideology having Carte blanche privileges to interfere with young minds in publicly funded classrooms, it's downright insidious.

8) Your views are bigoted and harmful to trans and non-binary people.

This is nothing more than a silencing tactic. The claim that my careful, lengthy and reasonable explanation of my own beliefs will directly lead to people kicking the fuck out of non-binary or trans folks is absurd. I never advocate violence in response to opinions or being different. I don't hate non-binary or trans people, I don't have any desire to see them hurt or to hurt them myself. Simply claiming my opinion is harmful by its very existence is a non sequitur. Perhaps you feel hurt by reading or hearing my opinion, perhaps you have taken deep offence to my beliefs. Fine, that is your view of the world clashing with mine and you feel hurt by it, it isn't me hurting you. I don't even know you or care what you do or what you are. As far as I'm concerned, your life is your own and none of my business. People only make out that my opinion here is bigoted as an excuse for them to vomit hateful bile all over me. I'm not the bigot here, those of you who attack me and call me scum are the bigots.

------

If you can think of any other points I have failed to address, bring them up here. If you insult me I will ignore you. I have taken hours and hours out of my day to try and respond to people for the past week and put down my thoughts as clearly and elaborately as I can. I have made an effort. If you can't respect that and want to be a disgrace, you don't deserve my time and I won't be giving it to you.
Viewed: 545 times
Added: 6 years, 8 months ago
 
69 Comments on this Journal
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EstebanG
EstebanG
6 years, 8 months ago
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I have a degree in Psychology with a concentration in human sexuality, I'm a card-carrying member of the APA,  and I'm still ignored by both the Cons and Libs alike if I say something that doesn't fit into their specific niche belief of the moment.
CottonCandyPanda
CottonCandyPanda
6 years, 8 months ago
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Wow, that's fucking depressing!
EstebanG
EstebanG
6 years, 8 months ago
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It's human nature.  People twist themselves into Gordian knots to preserve their ego integrity, often to the exclusion of physical reality and the imposition of fantasy.
CottonCandyPanda
CottonCandyPanda
6 years, 8 months ago
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In an ideal world there would be some kind of creature that FEEDS on people this stupid.
EstebanG
EstebanG
6 years, 8 months ago
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We call them clergy.
CottonCandyPanda
CottonCandyPanda
6 years, 8 months ago
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I meant feed off of as in "kill and eat them before they have children."
EstebanG
EstebanG
6 years, 8 months ago
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I know.  I make funneh.  Begin the laughing process!
KevinSnowpaw
KevinSnowpaw
6 years, 8 months ago
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honestly a well put together explation.



you will still catch hell for it though becouse your refusal to play pretend somehow directly harms people...the logic I will never understand.
CottonCandyPanda
CottonCandyPanda
6 years, 8 months ago
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All part of the victim complex. I'm starting to think they'd actually be happier if the world was this twisted, dark, fucked up place they imagine it to be. At this point I compare them to a masochist that has failed to find a sadist that can get them off.
moyomongoose
moyomongoose
6 years, 8 months ago
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Edited 6 years, 8 months ago by Owner
Reckless Angel - Revised Edition by moyomongoose
+6


The Bible indicates that the Angels have no sexuality, and were not born into existance by means of a mother and father in the usual way as creatures in this world are.
They were all created at the same instant out of thin air at the snap of God's fingers...>POOF<...all at once suddenly...already in adult form upon being created.
However, all Angelic beings do have a gender of masculine demeanor about them, although there never was any sex equipment down there to begin with...God never seen the need to endow them with it.
That would tend to suggest gender and sex as being two seperate intities...However, that might be a unique scinario for the Angels being that sex is nonexistant for them anyway.

Gee-wizz...Heaven help us if the Angels started taking offence to any of this.

Reckless Angel - Revised Edition [Page 6] by moyomongoose
+6

 
Xiao6996
Xiao6996
6 years, 8 months ago
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It only really matters if you believe in angels, gods, and such though.
moyomongoose
moyomongoose
6 years, 8 months ago
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It does to me being that I do believe in all of that....However, regardless of who does or does not believe in God, it did get my point of view across concerning gender relating to sex.
Xiao6996
Xiao6996
6 years, 8 months ago
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All I am saying is that the argument from that angle doesn't have any affect on those who do not believe in those things. Its perfectly valid for you to believe in your religious iconography, but to those on the outside it doesn't really help the conversation come to a satisfactory conclusion. I hope that makes sense.
VileFiend
VileFiend
6 years, 8 months ago
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But wait. Didn't the Nephilim breed with human females, and produced giants as offspring (not that the silly superstitions of ancient goat herders actually mean anything, of course)?
moyomongoose
moyomongoose
6 years, 8 months ago
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Edited 6 years, 8 months ago by Owner
The theory on that says the Angels have supernatural powers, including shap-shifting. The theory has it that those Angels who were involved in that scandal supernaturally gave themselves a temporary form of counterfiet genitalia. It was said that the phoney genitalia did not give them the erotic pleasure we all have come to know, but it did do the job of impregnating those women of Earth they became involved with. When they were done, their phoney genitalia then vanished.
Those Angels who were involved are bound in chains today awaiting the day they will be thrown into the Lake of Fire...This is for at least five reasons;

1. They mocked the sexuality God created by forming a counterfiet of it...God never meant the experience of having sexuality to be for the Angels...It is considered none of their business.

2. Vane envy was another reason. Those Angels were envious of the Earth creatures being endowed with sex and they were not (who wouldn't be?). Although their counterfiet genitalia could never produce pleasurable erotic sensations for them (a fake is never as good as the real thing), they were at least able to accomplish producing an offspring which they were satisfied was a kudo enough for them.

3. Angels who got involved with Earth woman using their phoney genitalia were stealing the women who were meant for the men to have as their wives...Those Angels did not have the right to 'cross the line' into another world and take the women for themselves, thus possibly denying some men of having a wife.

4. It was considered a form of sexual molestation on the part of the Angels to be messin' around with Earth beings in that capacity...That was definitly "off limits" for them...Not to mention, none of their business.

5. The acts of those Angels caused evil dangerous giants (which are nephilm) to be born on the Earth. The giant, Goliath, who King David had to kill, was the product of one of those Angels getting involved with an Earth woman.

The Angelic Kingdom were warned at one time NOT to do it.
They were sternly warned, "You leave those Earth people alone. Their ability to have families is none of your concern".
And they were probably reminded that a fling with that sweet little Earth woman was not worth Eternity in the Lake of Fire.
But some of them did not listen...couldn't help themselves...and decided to counterfieted their own genitalia and get involved with women anyway.
Needless to say, God had become very very very very very pissed off at those Angels who disobeyed that warning.
Who knows? That could have pissed God off worse than the time Lucifer and his hords of fallen Angels attempted to overthrow Heaven.

    
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 8 months ago
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And an angel and a demon fucked and gave birth to Genesis, which escaped heaven and possessed a redneck Texan fistfighting disillusioned preacher. The preacher then set out on a road trip with his alcoholic Irish vampire best friend and assassin ex girlfriend to find God and kick his head in for making the world a shithouse.
VileFiend
VileFiend
6 years, 8 months ago
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I loved the graphic novel, but couldn't make it through the first episode of the TV adaptation.
Juria316
Juria316
6 years, 8 months ago
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Ok, first off, to paraphrase a certain Doctor, it seems to me that, rather than being something that can be placed into our neat little order of things because we, meaning human beings, like organization, gender is a big ball of willbidy-wobbildy gendy-wendy stuff. And second, what are you referencing, because it sounds awesome and I want to see it.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 8 months ago
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A comic series called Preacher XP.
KNIFE
KNIFE
6 years, 8 months ago
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If you don't do that up as a graphic novel I will!  :D

That's fucking brilliant! :D
shadycat
shadycat
6 years, 8 months ago
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KNIFE
KNIFE
6 years, 8 months ago
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Good. I missed a lot of comics / graphic novels a while back so I'm glad that idea got made.
Gonna have to check it out. Thanks.
Danjen
Danjen
6 years, 8 months ago
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I actually lost a friend over #5, since I wouldn't blindly accept published studies at face value because of who published it
CottonCandyPanda
CottonCandyPanda
6 years, 8 months ago
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Edited 6 years, 8 months ago by Owner
These people don't care about being correct, they only care about being right...if that makes sense to you.
Kupok
Kupok
6 years, 8 months ago
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Edited 6 years, 8 months ago by Owner
.
EstebanG
EstebanG
6 years, 8 months ago
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Precisely.
GreenDude
GreenDude
6 years, 8 months ago
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holy shit i read the whole thing, it still baffles me how its always the well thought out opinions like yours that are frequently attacked by both sides. seems like thinkers still aren't and won't be for a long time apreciated by society
Taonas
Taonas
6 years, 8 months ago
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I've seen his opinions summarized as "He's basically saying it's okay to hate on trans ppl" by idiots on Twitter. People do not read.
Stratus
Stratus
6 years, 8 months ago
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Sounds like something a transphobe would say
/s

All seriousnessm reading takes time, which people severely lack when they are busy blowing each other 24/7
GreenDude
GreenDude
6 years, 8 months ago
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it also requires a functioning brain which these people pushing for controversy and hatred clearly lack
Vuk91
Vuk91
6 years, 8 months ago
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1) Wait... Why is there a connection between Trans people, Non-Binary people and Intersexual people? Trans people are called that way because they transition from one gender to another. As such, We can have Male to Female, or Female to Male Transgenders. Adding more genders would be a waste of intellect. Non-Binary people are a weird case, because they clearly are the sex they are born with, but claim to be neither. Most "Non-Binary" people are ladies through and through, so at best, the more correct naming of this group of people is Gender Noncomforming, which means someone who doesn not act as expected from their gender. That does not need to be considered a gender of it's own. As for Intersex people... well... Most of these people SUFFER from a disease during their time as a fetus which causes the "intersexuality", therefore they are doomed to live a short life. True healthy hermaphrodites are extremely rare, to the point that today, none of them even exist. Most people consider human herms a myth at best, and maybe they are not wrong. Wether hemaphrodites or intersex are considered a gender of their own is... arguable, to say the least, but the terms "MAle Herm and female herm" are thrown around, so maybe, they are just men and women with a little bit of the opposite sex. I dunno. I see no connection between Trans, Inter and NonBinary people and the "Gender Spectrum" crap whatsoever. Nor the necessity of the latter.

2) By cultures throughout history, You mean religions outside the European sphere, right? I think a few "Genders" listed by Tumblerites were taken from Native American or Asian MYTHOLOGY or SUPERSTITION at best. Religion is not an excuse especially if this Genderspectrum movement AIMS at defying religion -by which they mean the abrahamic ones only, it seems-. Christianity is busted a lot these days, Islam is making a joke out of itself by sticking to a book that demands violence, and Jews... well, old testament. Nothing more to say. Since World War 2, Jews are protected most of the time -except when Evergreen COllege happened, when a jew was held HOSTAGE by leftists in the college for just being there, because apparently he was a white supermacist nazi or whatever these leftists smoked that day....- so I won't make a note on them... Religion validates nothing.

3) Leftist people love to throw around the John Money theory on gender =/= sex a lot in spite of the guy being a lunatic, not a real scientist, and his actions had grave consequences. If that theory is what these people want to base everyone's views on GENDER, then the world is lost to morons, both LGBT and otherwise. Gender, as far as I see it, is a synonim for SEX for a good reason. SEX is a word used to describe the act of Fucking, the main purpose of which is reproduction -which We as a species don't like, to be honest. I'd like to have sex without worrying about causing a child to be born into suffering. Men produce sperm and women produce Ovarian eggs, which the sperm will make contact with. This is how it has always been, and it always will be.
Vuk91
Vuk91
6 years, 8 months ago
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4) Again, what is the connection between being non-comforming to Your Gender's societal roles, and gender being a spectrum? Are these people drunk on LSD or something? Now I know what brainwashing is like. Non-Binary, BiGender, Genderless, Demiboy/girl, whatever, these labels, man... these labels. They do not need them. People nowadays can do whatever they want according to their own ability, regardless of their gender. No need to "make another gender-label" for that. A girl doing "boy" things is no less a girl than their "girly" counterpart. But alas, being gender-noncomforming is not the worst concept I ever saw... It's just treating it as it's own is silly. And the Gender Spectrum is silly, and is not based on actualy science.

5) You mean Tumblerinas, some random popular Youtube channel pandering to You, a Bill Nye reboot that has no credibility, John Money's lunatic experiments, and a Gender-Studies course that, again, is stuck in the past and has no relevance to today's world? I see as much professionals on their side as a playground full of kids pretending to be adults. (Which, by the way, IS ZERO). They should have considered that REAL trans people are trans because they got a condition, a bad bad mental illness called GENDER DYSPHORIA! Who they are "protecting" by attacking, criticizing and questioning You do not have Gender Dysphoria at all. If they got a mental illness, it's as far away from Gender Dysphoria, or in other words, GENDER in general, as possible. So... Who needs to leave it to professionals again? Because ACTUAL professionals disregard the Gender Spectrum, or better, Debunk it to the ground, if they are allowed to tell the truth and NOT to pander to these psychotic snowflakes... Seriously, AMERICA -and related Western countries- are the only places where this is a thing. Hungary, where I live, is hopefully safe. I mean, what's the point forcing this bullshit here? We only have ONE pronoun for singular third person, FOR EVERYONE practically, so they can't Pronoungame us.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 8 months ago
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RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 8 months ago
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A few things from your starting assumptions:

First, the journal you are addressing is not the entirety of my argument, it is a response to things people have actually asked of me or stated to me. If those things are stupid, that's not on me. The purpose of the journal isn't to make a complete argument but to address certain things in one place rather than to do so with multiple people and having to constantly repeat myself.

You say here that my "thesis" is that children should not be taught about gender as a spectrum, which is a fair characterisation. My reasons for doing so are not part of mathematical technicalities. I don't know why you bothered with the digression to explain what a bimodal distribution is, but whatever. The crux is this: it's not about refraining from teaching children about trans and non-binary people, it's about not teaching children that their own, personal identity is on a spectrum, because we know for a categorical fact that it will never be the case for them, well over 95% of the time.

I do state that in the technical sense, gender is a spectrum, because in those terms it is, but this requires an assumption. We have to assume that those people who claim to not be either male or female are actually correct that they aren't. We cannot say that life is just a personally subjective experience, that identity is entirely predicated upon our own perception of it, because that ignores entirely our interaction with the outside world and other people (you have no problem projecting your assumptions about me into my identity, for example). I have said before in another submission that, for example, we could be a serial killer for killing several people, yet any compulsion we may possess to identify ourselves as NOT a serial killer has NO impact on our identities. We are still damn serial killers. There are multiple possible reasons for why someone considers themselves, identifies as a gender other than male or female. Just as there are multiple reasons for saying you are not guilty of a crime (you're actually innocent, you just dont want to be caught, you don't want to admit it to yourself etc). So gender is only a spectrum if we also grant that every person claiming not to be male or female is absolutely correct in saying this and I don't see any evidence that they are. Intersex is not a gender, it's a genetic disorder, when something has gone wrong, so our obvious complications with identifying to which category of gender they belong to is merely academic. As for trans and non-binary, those whom are are born biologically in one way and feel emotionally to be another, but our emotional state is one hell of a poor measure of accuracy when it comes to our own identity. If you have depression you spend great deal of your time feeling utterly abjectly worthless, a complete worm, but are we to conclude from such conviction that worthlessness is a genuinely accurate aspect of that person's identity? I don't think I'm being too presumptuous in assuming you don't believe that would be the case.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 8 months ago
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What you are demanding from other people on pain of calling them scum is that they integrate your subjective perception of yourself into their own understanding of what it means to be human. We can talk about gender in an academic, classification sense and we can talk about where gender comes from etc but keep it out of the classrooms of young kids. Arguments that have not been settled are not fit for purpose to attempt to integrate these theoretical constructs into people's lives. It's not the same thing as teaching kids fucking chemistry, it's teaching them something about WHO THEY ARE and it is NOT TRUE. It is only a tiny proportion of people who ever experience problems with their gender identity and the rest of people never, ever do. If you then drum into them that their identity is really some fluid thing, some theoretical thing, you're adding another layer of complication into their development. If you are a non-binary person or have gender dysphoria then you will obviously know first fucking hand how emotionally confusing and traumatic that is. Don't you see that you're advocating making that SAME PROBLEM a part of EVERY CHILD'S life? For what? To make you feel better about yourself? You do not fuck with people like that for your own god damn satisfaction and I'm sorry to say this but wishing it to happen makes you either a fool or legitimately malicious.

You also claim I do not want kids to learn about the existence of non-binary and trans people, this is false. In everywhere else I've had this argument I have explicitly stated that I have no problem whatsoever with raising awareness of other people's pain and/or differences and advocating civility and kindness. I do not endorse treating anybody like shit just because they're weird and never will endorse it. If you have to misrepresent me it doesn't reflect well on you, because either you're genuinely dishonest or you have neglected to consider anything I've said.

On my journal page you also mischaracterised me. You asked me what definition of gender I was using and where it is from. I have explained the context of what I mean by gender several times and I told you I'm using the dictionary definition. You then went on to accuse me of arguing that the dictionary definition is an authoritative source on the meaning of words. This is nonsense. The reason I use dictionary definitions is for the sake of clarity so that when I use a word people know what I mean by it, because dictionaries record common usages of words. Considering I also defined what I fucking meant by "gender" in my argument it ought to be obvious that I'm not treating the dictionary like the Holy Bible. I do it because I don't want to confuse and mislead people by switching the meanings of words or using meanings that are not common. You are the one using a social science construction of the concept of gender that lies outside the most common usage of the word, not me. Quit playing pedantic word games, it only undermines your integrity and makes you look like you're deliberately misunderstanding me for the convenience of argument.

I have NEVER said not to accommodate trans and non-binary kids, I have NEVER advocated harming people. Just don't tell kids their OWN identities exist on a fucking spectrum of gender, new additions to which are constantly being made, simply because it makes YOU feel correct. This is about not meddling in other peoples minds and lives, it's not fucking innocent like teaching bloody calculus and I'm sick of people on your side acting like it is. If you've got an argument that doesn't involve misrepresenting what I've said I'd like to hear it, but until then, I'd appreciate it if you didn't play word games.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 8 months ago
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RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 8 months ago
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Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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So, I'm still working on the reply here, but I need another piece of information before I can adequately reply. My second question asks point blank whether you believe gender is a binary or a spectrum, and you didn't answer, choosing instead to answer the first part of the question.

The main reason I ask about whether gender is a binary or a spectrum is because your "qualifications" actually disqualify gender as a spectrum. Your argument goes:

" I do state that in the technical sense, gender is a spectrum, because in those terms it is, but this requires an assumption. We have to assume that those people who claim to not be either male or female are actually correct that they aren't.


Given that you, personally, accept only the existence of two genders (which is the answer to the first question I asked), it implies that you think gender is not, in fact, a spectrum -- that there is no 'between' someone can be. If, however, you do think gender is a spectrum, it contradicts the first answer (as, by definition, a spectrum has many different points one could identify under).

Do me a favour and resolve this contradiction, will you? Did you argue in error by saying that gender is a spectrum or do you accept the existence of more than two genders?
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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In my response image I said there are 2 genders. That's a binary.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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One more thing. What is the standard of evidence you would accept for the biological existence of a nonbinary gender? If I could show a range of biological structures that one could use to identify under more than two genders, would that be enough, or would you require more evidence than that?
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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There is no biological evidence for a third or more genders in human beings, only genetic mutations. There are males and there are females. People with both sets of sex organs, for example, aren't a new gender and I'm sure if you thought they were then your argument for there being more genders would be predicated upon sex organs, haha.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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That doesn't answer my question, though. I'm not asking you to tell me whether you think evidence exists; I'm asking you what evidence would change your mind.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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What difference does it make when there's no evidence? Gonna magic some up from thin air? I presume you're going to mention atypical chromosomal compositions and intersex people. If you do, know that your version of gender fluidity, your non-binary claim is based on your personal feelings, not your biology, so its irrelevant to your argument anyway. All mammalian species are male or female, you are male or female. When you get to be over 50 you'll have different primary medical concerns, whether its your prostate or your breasts. Biological mutations are not part of your assertions, so if you use them as a pro non-binary argument all you're doing is undermining your own already piss-weak case lol. So there is no evidence you could present to convince me because non-binary rhetoric has nothing to do with biology and I know for a fact that biological sex is a binary phenomena with genetic aberrations as a tiny set of outliers.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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So what you're saying is, there is no hypothetical evidence that would cause you to rethink your position.

I'm not playing games, Roarey. This is what separates an honourable person seeking truth from a zealot blind to reality. When Bill Nye debated Ken Ham about Intelligent Design vs. evolution, they were asked what would cause them to change their mind. Ken Ham said nothing. Bill Nye, the scientist, said 'evidence'.

If you want to retreat to scientific fact, you should actually act like you understand the scientific method. If no scientific evidence could sway you, you don't actually care about science, you care about confirming your biases. Science should always be willing to update its theories based on new evidence, and moreover, any theory worth its salt should have a known big glowing red button it dares reality to press that would blow the whole thing apart. The fact that you doubt that such evidence exists is exactly why that button is so important: You throw down a gauntlet and say, I am so confident that this theory is sound that I dare anyone to show me this kind of evidence. That's what differentiates a theory from a confirmation bias.

So I ask again: What evidence would nullify your hypothesis of "there are only two genders"? In the event that I could demonstrate a spectrum of physical structures in the human body, would that be enough, or is some other evidence necessary? If so, what kind?
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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You'd have to show evidence of a perfectly natural, biologically reproductive third sex that requires no medical intervention to exist and isn't part of genetic disease. Which doesn't. Exist. So drop the garbage honour and science talk because people identifying themselves as new genders based on emotional, subjective, personal opinion is not science, is not evidence of being correct. There are people in the world who believe they are the reincarnation of celebrities and historical/religious figures. Gonna argue they're bloody correct as well? It is you who refuses to acknowledge the basic scientific fact that biological sex and gender are codependent and not independently variable. All you've done is redefine the word gender to mean whatever you want it to mean for the convenience of your worldview, which is why you had to ask me my definition of the word in the first place, despite repeatedly defining it in my own words beforehand. The last person I need a lecture from is someone delusional and prepared to jump through hoops and tie themselves in knots to shove a square peg through a round hole.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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Okay, thanks, I'll take it from here.

God, it's like pulling teeth with you just to get your actual position.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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Most people don't ask pointless questions to look for miniscule points that ultimately miss the forest for the trees, lol.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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God is in the details.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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What happened to your forthcoming essay? Cold feet?
Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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I'd realized it was beginning to impact my mental health to beat my head against this particular brick wall, and to be blunt, you don't get to have that kind of power over me. Your definition of gender is ridiculous and not based in the current scientific understanding. We don't use gender as a shorthand for reproductive capability. That's your definition, not anyone else's. I literally had a paper lined up titled "Male or female? Brains are intersex" about brain structures and how none exist that are exclusive to any one sex, but as it turns out your definition — your current definition, anyway, because there's no way to reconcile gender as a bimodal distribution any more — is so warped that it doesn't even include that.

The amount of distance I have to travel between your position to reality, a distance I will have to drag you kicking and screaming because you don't want to go there, a distance that grows greater and greater the more I try and close the gap because you move to more ridiculous positions as the pseudo-reasonable ones crumble, makes the whole thing prohibitively difficult. I mean, congratulations, I guess, for being so unwilling to engage with the real world that I gave up trying. Call that a win, if you want. Dance around and crow that I can't penetrate your fortress of the unreal and consider that evidence that I'm the one who's incorrect. As if the fact that I personally can't make a dent in your self-reinforced certainty means your position is correct, and not that you're an amazingly efficient rationalization engine capable of explaining away anything that doesn't fit your worldview.

But I can address one particular thing that truly irked me, that being that you told me you listened to nonbinary people about their experiences.

I passed a survey around Twitter and my local social networks, and got about forty responses from nonbinary people. I asked about statements you've said and arguments you've made, and their history with navigating gender. Of those forty responses, every one considered the statements you've made that I polled on to be transphobic to some extent. Every one disagrees that you understand nonbinary experiences the way you say you do. A plurality of them, like, me, spent years struggling in the dark about how to identify before finally landing on some nonbinary identity, one person for seventeen years, longer than myself. 35 respondents wished they'd known about a more nuanced form of gender sooner. I can show you the responses, as well as individual statements that people have made, as I have clearance from many individuals to publish them with attribution if I want to.

These aren't anonymous responses. I know many of these people, they've told me their stories, and I can use that to paint a more complete picture of the nonbinary experience in gestalt than you've ever had in your life. I could have done that with just me, too, but you don't believe me, so, maybe forty of us will change your mind.

If you say you listen to nonbinary people, fucking listen to us, especially when we disagree with what you claim about us. My experience is typical for a nonbinary person, and what you say is harmful to us, and that's not just me talking now, three dozen other people say so.

Or just come out and say you're ignorant of us, that our identity is weird and scary to you, and it makes you hate us because it feels like we threaten your framework for understanding the world. That it's easier to deny reality than to admit your model for the world might have been wrong all this time. It'd be far easier to believe than your unbelievably naive assertion that you know something.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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Power over you? Fuck me, you are paranoid. Considering the concept of gender you rely on originated with a discredited, unethical, child abusing fuck named John Money, I'm surprised you're cool with accepting his insane drivel, considering how concerned you are about guilt by association. There are two sexes, which means two genders. To believe otherwise is nothing more than a cult-like insistence upon wish-fulfilling ideology. I started out condemning teaching kids their gender is on a spectrum when it never is is wrong. You claim teaching children there are two sexes is harmful to supposedly non-binary people. Well if teaching the binary harms the non-binary in your reasoning, then teaching the binary they are non-binary would harm them. So you can advocate something that will fuck the childhoods of almost every child on earth, by percentage, so you can suck your fucking thumb and believe you aren't a boy or a girl. And you sick bastards call me a bigot.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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First of all, it's not paranoia, it's what I experience having to defend the existence of my identity to people. But I wouldn't expect you to start understanding the human nonbinary condition now.

Second of all, a purely symmetrical analysis doesn't make any sense here. In one scenario, the one where 'there are only two genders' is the model taught to people, my gender is said not to exist. That's where the harm comes in: The model simplifies out to the point where people like me do not have words for who they are, and this has mental health consequences down the line as people struggle with their identity for literal actual years. In the other scenario, where gender as a spectrum is the model taught to people, the opposite is not true: Your gender is not said not to exist. If you know you're a boy, you're a boy, and that's that. It's startling the extent to which you don't understand what you're talking about.

Third of all, Judith Butler exists whose poststructuralist work has very little to do with Money, and so did Magnus Herschfeld and the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Germany, which came before (and I'd say that it had far better science at its disposal, but the Nazis burned it down, so the world may never know). The idea that I'm basing my theory on a guy who tried to raise a cis boy as a girl after a botched circumcision is hilariously wrong. Honest question: Have you bothered to look up anything about Butler's theories? Anything on trans biology before Money? Harry Benjamin? Anyone? Or did you find this guy who fucked up a kid's life and went, ah, clearly I can paint transness as a dangerous cult by claiming that all its theory is built on his work!

Do us both a favour and read Gender Trouble or something, it's embarrassing.

I love how you gave up the pretense instantly, though. You never cared about us — binary or nonbinary trans people — and I'm just glad you're no longer pretending.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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Edited 6 years, 7 months ago by Owner
Trans people are not non-binary. I'm not interested in what people theorise on a psychological basis when the concept of gender being separate from biology is false to begin with, it is a construct. An individuals subjective experience of gender, when they don't feel they are either male or female is a psychological problem not a fact of life, which is why it is so comparatively rare.

And you're wrong about the teaching side. There are schools in Sweden right now teaching kindergartners gender doesn't exist at all. It is fundamentally tripe. You have to scrape everywhere for every tidbit of 'evidence' to support yourself, I don't. And I'm not the one who is fine taking the risk with educating all children with something completely unsubstantiated because it makes me feel better. That makes you a bad person. But no, I'm the tosser because when people on tumblr invent new genders like thinking up icecream flavours they aren't really bonkers. I'm clearly deluded in the face of that pristine concept. What next? Can you identify as pudding and become it? Let's teach kids that too.

The fact you think any of this is based in science is a joke, look at the crap you linked me to, a feminist pamphlet. Did you know that well over 80% of all scientific papers published in journals from feminist, gender and social theory have 0 citations? They're completely worthless and exist only so parasitic people can have jobs writing trash, knowing public funding is provided to universities and public libraries are obliged by law to purchase all the literature. If you want to access the papers online they're all behind a paywall. It isn't science love, it's fucking dreck and the only evidence out there for your gender theory is self-report of peoples subjective opinions on their feelings about what gender they are. It can all be simply explained as individual personality differences but no, the feminist cult must be correct. You're a joke.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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See, this is why I stopped arguing with you in the first place. You don't have a clue what you're talking about and it's exhausting showing you all the ways in which you fail to engage with reality.

You're not dealing with some Film Studies major's thesis here. This is Judith Butler we're talking about. Google Scholar lists it as being cited 47,300 times. It itself has pages upon pages of citations to other work. I could care less what you think about the problems inherent in the humanities (I looked up your source on that statistic, by the way, it's all of the humanities, not only feminist theory), because it simply doesn't apply to Gender Trouble.

So all I'm hearing is "I don't want to read something that I might not understand or that might not reinforce what I know about the world." Like, if you have a question about it, ask me, please. I'll walk you through it. We can make a project of it, like, let's get you to at least understand the central thesis behind gender identity as I see it, and maybe you can construct better arguments than "feminism is a cult" and "gender is a cult" and "nonbinary identities are a psychological problem".

(On that last one: The biggest problem I have with my identity is external. I'm actually very comfortable in my identity as a genderfluid person, in a vacuum. I would happily shift from one identity to another and generally not get in anyone's way if left to my own devices. If other people have a problem with that, it's not a psychological problem on my end. There's a famous saying I'm about to butcher: Before diagnosing yourself with gender dysphoria, first make sure you aren't surrounded by assholes.

And the state of the art in psychology, which is a social science and not one of those humanities you think is so horrible, agrees with me, so, nyah.)

And I mean, you can call me a joke if you want, but a lot of truth is said in jest, you know? The best humour teaches us something about ourselves and the way the world operates. It doesn't rely on prejudices to sell cheap laughs.

But man, the funniest thing that came out of this conversation is you trying to justify dismissing Gender Trouble on the basis that humanities work isn't cited very often. Like, way to set me up for that dunk. You're hilarious.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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Edited 6 years, 7 months ago by Owner
So you have one document with a lot of citations and you think that refutes the fact that almost all the rest of the entire literature on the subject doesn't? The reason her shit has so much is the same reason the bible is popular. That's not how science works. When people do research and publish findings they're adding to a body of knowledge and you assess that contribution in accordance with its usefulness to other researchers. You know of one person. Check any actual scientific discipline that isn't Marxist garbage and you'll find a big difference. There's an organisation called True Peer Review that regularly looks up research from feminist journals and publishes the extracts, because they are so utterly ludicrous. The people who do this research don't even want people to read it, it embarrasses them. The fact that you can read this person's work and act like it solidifies everything you say without question is the reason you are in a cult. I've read literally hundreds of books, two thirds of which are non-fiction. I used to be very much of the same mindset and politics as you for over ten years and I was deeply embedded in the literature. I have since changed my mind. You need to assert that I have no contact with reality but I'm not that insecure haha. I've more knowledge than you have, you haven't been able to beat a single point I've put forward in this whole gender debate and neither has anyone else from your side of the fence. Meanwhile humanity has perceived itself as male and female since time immemorial, with always a tiny a fringe feeling different. But this? This is a tumblr  political movement, a desire to control how other people perceive ones identity and talk about it, to blow off personal responsibility and accountability. That is why there is a constant stream of new pronouns and genders along with a push to have it all enshrined in the law, like with Bill C-16 in Canada.

Your linked document will never change that. Oh and for the most cited paper, under 50,000 citations is tiny.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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It's also a 92 page political manifesto with no actual research in it, no study, but a paper by a feminist writing about society in feminist terms. That isn't science.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 7 months ago
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So what you're saying is, you have no idea what it says and you can't refute any of its arguments. Also, your attempt to say "hey, 47,000 citations isn't much" is, well, silly, when you actually look at the numbers: The seventh-most cited scientific paper in history has 46,000 citations. Gender trouble would place seventh all-time on this list. You're really bad at this.

Let's face it, your argument is that you dismiss the arguments in Gender Trouble because you think the entire field has nothing to teach you, that it's a dead discipline with no redeeming qualities, and the fact that you haven't actually read any feminist theory doesn't seem to matter. You're afraid to learn anything about feminism or gender theory because it might change your mind, or show you how much of an asshole you've been to roughly half the population of the world — I get that, it's much harder to admit you're wrong than to just dig your heels in and stubbornly resist any attempt to square your position with inconvenient realities. ("Hur hur no u." Saved you a rebuttal.) And because the subject confuses and frightens you, why, it must terrify anyone younger than you! It's not that a lifetime of prejudice has calcified your ideology to the point where you are less flexible and unable to take on new information, no no. It's the children who are wrong.

I'm literally offering you information to help complete your understanding of my perspective on the subject, even if you end up disagreeing with it anyway, and you're slapping it out of my hand because it's has an icky word in it.

Suit yourself.

Have you noticed that I didn't do that with your statistic about humanities papers? I looked up the research (because why would you even consider linking me to the data to see for myself) and as it turns out, yes, about 80% of humanities papers aren't cited anywhere after, I think it was five years. I accepted that into my position, and updated my arguments accordingly. You'll notice I haven't even once tried to argue that feminist papers are, on average, cited much. Instead I've focused on, y'know, the fact that this one is on the far end of the bell curve, and if we're using citations as a marker of quality, which you were right up until you learned Gender Trouble had a lot of them, then Gender Trouble is at least worth looking at to see why it's widely cited.

You don't do that. You've collected things you think prove your point, and you hammer on those, discarding everything else as false for whatever reason. A good example of this is John Money, whose hypothesis was that gender is completely the result of socialization, and thus malleable in individuals to the point where you can reassign someone's gender, as he tried, and failed spectacularly, to do to David Reimer — which turns out not to be the case, and would be a really good thing to know when someone tells you they're really sure they're a certain gender.

Do you get it yet? I know more about the shit you use as a bludgeon than you do, and it's not even a bludgeon, it's a broadsword you're too stupid to swing correctly.

Anyway, I've said my piece. My goal here was to get you to stop claiming that you listen to nonbinary people, and you haven't even attempted to defend that, because I think even you know I have you dead to rights. You absolutely do not listen to us about anything, because if you did, you wouldn't be making the absurd and transphobic statements you've been making.

Just say you hate us, because you do. I would respect you more.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 7 months ago
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Edited 6 years, 7 months ago by Owner
No, I'm saying what it is, a 92 page political pamphlet with no actual scientific evidence. When papers genuinely add to scientific knowledge, the most important ones are cited millions of times. You cannot escape the fact that your beliefs are predicated upon a section of self proclaimed science that is so useless that over 80% of what it produces is completely worthless and never cited. The paper you linked is an academic attempt to fit gender theory within the framework of feminist ideology, which is predicated on the concept that society is only about the dynamics of power between interest groups and the dominant group is white cis males, so society is a patriarchy. This has never been anything but nonsense. You want to be able to make people recognize your invented gender fluidity and you want kids indoctrinated into it to make yourself feel vindicated. You even, you filth, lump yourself in with trans folks who transition from one of the only two genders/sexes to the other. Gender as a concept was invented by one man, who was so wrong the gender reassignment clinic he founded had to be shut down. Just because you feel you are neither male or female doesn't mean you have ANY say in what others think you are when they see you or how they refer to you. You have no power over that, just as I have no power to stop you representing me however you choose to. I refuse flat out to buy into and encourage your delusions and I oppose tooth and fucking nail passing on your delusions to millions of children so they can be even more confused than children naturally are. 90% of the time, kids who are confused about gender in childhood find out they're gay and settle into the sex with which they were born and well over 95% of all children are never confused to begin with. You think one fucking essay can overturn the whole concept of biology and for that you are no different from a member of a cult. You have nothing to stand on, your evidence is entirely based on self-reporting and requires upending everything we know about human biology. Nope, not gonna happen. Deal with that however you need to but I'm telling you right now the more you shovel this shit at people the more alone and separate from others you will be. Look at your last big journal about me, only one person could be bothered to respond. Its pathetic. I've held my own against a few hundred of you nitwits and I'm just a bloody bookworm cartoonist.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 6 months ago
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...The most cited paper, known as the Lowry paper, is cited 305,000 times, and only three papers in history have broken 100,000 citations. It's right there in the link I sent you, from Nature. Here's the link again, and as a reminder, I've already linked this: http://www.nature.com/news/the-top-100-papers-1.16224

You're literally lying to my face about this.

I'm discarding the rest of what you're saying for a moment just so I can focus on this, because I can't quite believe you would be this sloppy and brazen: I have literally given you a link that shows you how many times scientific papers are cited, and you're lying to me. Openly. After I've given you evidence that directly contradicts what you're claiming.

How do you expect to have any credibility whatsoever while being so callous with the truth that you'll tell someone black is white after they've definitively proven that it isn't? This isn't hypothetical or aesthetic or ethical, there can be no debate on this. Papers aren't cited "millions of times" due to some moral argument or because you feel like they have. This is a rigid, objective fact, I have the numbers, and you're quite simply lying about it.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 6 months ago
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I didn't lie, I was wrong. I assumed they'd be cited millions of times and didn't check. That's one thing I'm wrong on. Everything else? That's you being full of shit. You still haven't responded to the fact that your beloved cited paper isn't a study or evidence of anything. Its a political pamphlet. There's no experiment, no nothing.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 6 months ago
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You've been wrong about a hell of a lot more than that so far, boy, starting with that "bimodal distribution" bullshit you pulled at the beginning.

But goodness gracious, where do I begin. Almost every point you made has some kind of factual error in it.

Let's start with intersex conditions. The science is catching up on what intersex people theirselves have been saying for a while now: Their conditions do not "require surgery". US surgeons general have come out recently to agree with this position. You can read more about the research behind this position in the paper "Deferring surgical treatment of ambiguous genitalia into adolescence in girls with 21-hydroxylase deficiency: A feasibility study".

But it doesn't even really matter what we believe about intersex people, because it's a double standard to claim that intersex people given corrective surgery become one sex or another when trans people who have vaginoplasty (in some cases, the very same procedure as intersex people!) do not. Your definition of sex is based in fertility, and since no technology exists to allow trans or intersex people to impregnate or to bear children where they couldn't before, your position logically must be that sex is immutable from birth regardless of what surgeries are performed later. So now we're stuck at a contradiction: Either sex is defined at least partially in terms of genitalia, and surgery is a recognized way to reassign someone's sex, or it isn't, and intersex people exist as their own group.

So let's start with that. You pick whether you're yet again redefining your terms, or whether you accept intersex people as a group and sex has at least three categories. Nota bene, here: I don't actually care whether you think they're aberrant, deformed, mutated, or any other insulting thing you want to apply to them; if surgery is not a recognized way to assign someone's sex, then there exists a class of people with ambiguous genitalia, reproductive ability, and chromosomes such that we need at least three groups (male, female, intersex) to categorize the full range of possible human bodies that can occur in nature.

Biology, contrary to the neat boxes you lay out for it, exists on a spectrum, objectively, because intersex people exist. That's not up for debate. How we classify that spectrum is "social constructionism", the very thing that you crow about being unscientific — we get to decide how many categories are useful to us. You, for example, claim two is the most useful, and have to bend yourself into knots to account for the ambiguous middle in order to avoid a category that does not easily map to gender. I simply cut out the middleman and say, there are at least three, the ambiguous middle being its own space separate from the unambiguous male and female, and for my purposes, I don't need an exact number beyond that.

But we're not doing anything appreciably different by constructing these categories in these ways. We're looking at the same data and developing two different models to explain that data. Neither of these are, in fact, necessarily correct or incorrect, but are essentially political in nature, producing different sociological, legal, and medical effects on the affected population (in this case, intersex people) depending on which system is adopted by the state and other institutions.

Nomenclature is political. Everything is political. The sooner you realize that, the sooner we can have something approaching a productive conversation.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 6 months ago
link
Edited 6 years, 6 months ago by Owner
Okay, I'm willing to concede that intersex people don't always NEED surgery. It has been performed thusfar primarily for the benefit of the growing child, whether that's right or wrong is a whole other discussion. Intersex people have genitalia that didn't form properly, but their DNA is still either male or female. The reason you're so batshit insane is that you're a postmodernist, you deny the existence of an objective reality, all terms are inherently political and subject to infinite interpretations. How do I surmise this? Well you've said one part of it at the end of your response. The rest comes from your love of the paper you linked me to, which is so far up Jacques Derrida's arse it uses terms like phallogcentrism. Its absolute gobbledygook and you've linked it to me like its evidence. We can't have a discussion, we can't discuss evidence, because you just RULED OUT THE CONCEPT OF THE OBJECTIVE.

Society is very clear and relaxed on what gender is, what men and women are, it is you and your insane cult that is trying to fuck the system and make it meaningless. Absolutely disgraceful. Have you anything else to say that isn't playing games with words? Sex isn't determined just by genitalia, unless you believe the only biological difference between men and women are the gonads. And Christ are you wrong if you do.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 6 months ago
link
Actually, I've given this some thought. Considering the document you linked me to, your constant misrepresentation of my points, your baseless assertions of my stupidity, which you inevitably fail to demonstrate and the fact that you are a postmodernist intersectional feminist delusional nutcase, I'm ending this discussion with you. You don't believe in objective reality, you don't believe in evidence, yet you simultaneously believe that you're absolutely correct in everything you feel about yourself because reality, after all, is just subjective. There's nothing I can discuss with you, no argument can be had. You don't play by the rules, you rig them in your favour. I feel like a moron for ever having spent even 5 minutes communicating with you. In future, try having the honesty to fully state your position from the outset. Had I known you were this sick in the head I'd never have bothered. Good luck living your life goosestepping to postmodernist jargon, with your life steadily losing more and more of the meaning in it. You can screw your own brain up but you're sure as shit not doing it to mine. Tata.
Glire
Glire
6 years, 6 months ago
link
We can absolutely end this discussion, but there's one thing I'm going to say first.

I absolutely believe in the objective. I believe there are things that are incontrovertible. In none of these discussions have I argued that the facts on the ground do not exist, because they do.

The difference between you and I is that I understand that my assertions built upon those facts are subjective and interpretive. You see karyotypes as diverse as XX, XY, XXY, XXX, XYY, XXXY XXYY, et cetera, and you consider only the first two valid and the others to be aberrations. You do so on the (slightly misguided) basis that 46,XY and 46,XX people are fertile. That's an interpretation of the data, and it requires a specific priority (to base a social category on how one participates in procreation).

Do you understand me? The existence of those karyotypes, those are the objective facts. You can point to physical structures that exist and say, yes, these are a part of the world we live in. How we decide to create a model of the world to explain those structures is the subjective part, and we do it based on what we value.

There's nothing stopping us from interpreting this objective reality differently. In a couple of drafts, I've brought up the idea of a map-territory relation problem, but it always got cut. But this is what I'm talking about. We feel like the map is the real thing, because we've grown dependent on it. But it is at best a representation of the territory, not the territory itself.

This isn't, like, woo-woo metaphysics. This is basically philosophical neuroscience. It's how our brains operate.

What I've been trying to show you all this time is that you're treating the map as the territory and accusing me of denying reality and objectivity. I have done no such thing. On the contrary, by deciding that the model you rely on to understand things that exist in nature is actually the nature, you are in fact further away from reality than I am.

"Male and female are the only two sexes and everything else doesn't count" is not an objective argument. It relies on specific priorities to function, and other priorities may produce a different argument.

And honestly, I wish I'd just started with that. It would have been a lot easier to teach you the basics of semantics than to hope you knew anything about it. If there's nothing else to come of this, I suppose I should thank you for teaching me not to put the cart before the horse, especially when someone's as far in a dunning-kruger pit as you are. I really can't trust that you know anything about anything except the extremely narrow branch of biology you think proves your point.

Anyway, I've said my peace, and I will take my leave now. Do what thou wilt. Except claim you listen to nonbinary people, because, like I've demonstrated, you don't.

Objectively.
RoareyRaccoon
RoareyRaccoon
6 years, 6 months ago
link
Edited 6 years, 6 months ago by Owner
I'm gonna do you a favour and keep this simple. No fucking quibbling over insignificant shit, just basic propositions.

1. You claim to be gender fluid. People who claim to be non-binary say they are this because that is how they feel. This means their argument about gender isn't based in science or biology in particular.

2. Intersex people, hermaphrodites, these are people who have deformed genitalia due to hormone imbalances in utero, it is a medical condition that requires surgical intervention. If you want to argue that these people are new genders, you're already on seriously shaky ground, but this is something rooted in physical, biological reality. Your gender claims are not. So you have no business talking about them, they are not evidence for your claims.

3. Gender being separate from sex is false. John Money was first to make the distinction and his career was sordid, unethical and it resulted in horror. His pet project gender reassignment clinic had to be closed down. The rest of your ridiculous beliefs were raised on his dead edifice.

4. Self-report of individual peoples subjective interpretation of their gender is not evidence of new genders. Why? We know the definition of gender, which is the state of being male or female. A gender role is a description of the average traits of the average man and woman in a society. If you deviate from these traits it means you are an individual human being with your own personality. To claim it makes you a new gender means biology is wrong, the differences between male and female brains is wrong and the word gender itself has completely changed in meaning. I'd like to see you explain how your gender fluidity is anything more than you having a personality.

5. Non-binary people are not trans. Trans people feel they are born in the wrong body, their biology is what they have a problem with and they move from one of the two sexes to the other. Not from one of the two sexes to something someone just made up on tumblr.

6. There are new genders being created almost constantly online, each one having the same degree of scientific grounding: zero.

7. We know for a fact that only a tiny minority of children ever have any gender confusion at all and 90% of them just turn out to be gay. So teaching all kids their gender is on a huge spectrum is like teaching kids that because a small percentage of people are gay, then all kids are gay. This is why I say it is teaching them something false.

8. I've already expressed that we should raise awareness and pass on the basic message that people are not to be abused or mistreated because they are different, whatever that difference is, provided it isn't hurting anybody.

9. You can live how you want to live and its none of my business, in the same vein you have no say whatsoever in what I say and do. I don't believe your gender is fluid and I don't have to. I also won't be interfering in your life. The only reason we have talked at all is because you have contacted me.

10. Show me evidence that isn't a feminist political pamphlet, put your shit on the table so I can see it. That paper you sent me isn't evidence that gender is a spectrum its a qualitative analysis of feminist ideology and how the author can fit gender ideology into it.
IBp
IBp
6 years, 7 months ago
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>I asked 40 people who agree with me what they thought of your statements as I presented them and turns out they agree with me.
>B-but in the end it's not w-worth it! You're so wrong I won't even prove you wrong!
>ur scaerd xDDDDD

Wew lad.
And this is someone trying to represent non-binary people as /not/ having mental problems.
DeadAccountLOLXD
DeadAccountLOLXD
6 years, 8 months ago
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♥♥♥
batbat
batbat
6 years, 8 months ago
link
You know, physically i'm 27 years old, but I don't identify with the 27 year old mentality, I feel really old, so I'm gonna identify as 60 years old.

If you say im not old and don't put enough candles on my cake, I'm gonna be triggered and call you a bigot.
CompliantCoon
CompliantCoon
6 years, 3 months ago
link
In my opinion, there is no inherent difference between a natural variance and a psychological disorder. The difference is degree and attitude towards the thing. For instance, there is no inherent difference between people who are slightly neurotically tidy and people who have serious OCD. People talk about chemical imbalances in the brain, but even harmless personality traits can be caused by something like that. To this end, being transgender is just like anything else, there's not really any difference between it being a "psychological disorder" and the person actually being the opposite gender. If their brain is such that they believe themselves to be the opposite gender to what their sex is, and they are otherwise mentally stable, they are for all intents and purposes actually that gender. The error in thinking here is that psychological disorders are a different thing than simple differences in personality.

I'm not advocating not treating people who are "mentally ill." People with crippling OCD can really benefit from treatment. The thing that makes a disorder a disorder is usually defined by if it interferes with one's normal life. This is obviously problematic. If you think that "normal life" means being attracted to the opposite sex, then you may label homosexuality a disorder. I don't think there's any way to really quantify what truly makes a trait a disorder. I don't think that "treatment" should be forced on anyone, including children, unless they commit a crime, or are truly a dander to themselves. Of course this excludes people who are profoundly mentally retarded, and unable to make any decisions for themselves.

Being labelled as a disorder can actually be beneficial to transgender people. If it is seen as a disorder, and hormones and surgery are seen as the treatment,  it can be much easier for people to transition.

Note 1: I intentionally excluded being a danger to others as a criteria to force treatment on people. It is far too open to interpretation.

Note 2: Much of this rant is to do with mental health in general, and is not directly applicable to transgenderness.
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