Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

[Pickman's model]

Isn't the most honest answer that we don't have all the answers regarding gender identity and how it develops? A long time ago on a different thread, I said as much to someone who was arguing that gender is innate, and that imo it was important that they should not hang their sense of themselves and their potential rights on that particular hook.

isn't it perhaps that some people feel their gender is innate while other people might feel that their gender changes over time?

 

[8ball]

Not really, it amounts to the same thing. Do you think Rachel Dolezal has a legitimate claim to being transracial? Why? How is this different from transgender?

Rachel Dolezal’s pick-your-race policy works brilliantly – as long as you’re white | Claire Hynes

We've got a whole thread on that. All known relevant points covered.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

Isn't the most honest answer that we don't have all the answers regarding gender identity and how it develops? A long time ago on a different thread, I said as much to someone who was arguing that gender is innate, and that imo it was important that they should not hang their sense of themselves and their potential rights on that particular hook.

It does appear to be a dominant idea within transgender ideology, hence why we see arguments for concepts like the 'somatic body map'. But, I agree, I think 'gender identity' is a bad argument for rights or protections, as it's just thoughts and feelings. (This is one of the reasons why I have argued against the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act).

 

[Santino]

I'd rather be called a cunt than be told my identity is a lie.

Would you rather read a false dichotomy or be stabbed?

 

[Miranda Yardley]

We've got a whole thread on that. All known relevant points covered.

I was asking you, not the whole forum. Feel free to make a coherent argument though.

 

[kabbes]

We've got a whole thread on that. All known relevant points covered.

We have. And one of the points repeatedly argued on that thread (and subsequently brought onto this one) is that it is tough to draw clear boundaries between Rachel Dolezal's views and transgenderism.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Would you rather read a false dichotomy or be stabbed?

I'd rather be patronised.

 

[SpookyFrank]

We have. And one of the points repeatedly argued on that thread (and subsequently brought onto this one) is that it is tough to draw clear boundaries between Rachel Dolezal's views and transgenderism.

Although it is of course a fallacy to conflate a lack of clear boundaries with equivalency. Hence why 'gender is not a dichotomy' is a different statment from 'gender does not exist'.

 

[8ball]

We have. And one of the points repeatedly argued on that thread (and subsequently brought onto this one) is that it is tough to draw clear boundaries between Rachel Dolezal's views and transgenderism.

Though easy enough to identify mendacious attention-seeking by someone who has been caught out.

 

[8ball]

I was asking you, not the whole forum. Feel free to make a coherent argument though.

My opinions on the matter are all on that thread.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

There's some irony here that calling a transsexual a 'cunt' is acceptable but referring to a man who identifies as a woman with masculine pronouns is an act of hate. The priorities here are all topsy-turvy.

For fucks sake. Everyone gets called a cunt on here. Being a transsexual doesn't protect you from that. Or do you think it should?

 

[MochaSoul]

Not really, it amounts to the same thing. Do you think Rachel Dolezal has a legitimate claim to being transracial? Why? How is this different from transgender?

Rachel Dolezal’s pick-your-race policy works brilliantly – as long as you’re white | Claire Hynes

Aargh... not that again.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

My opinions on the matter are all on that thread.

LOL.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

isn't it perhaps that some people feel their gender is innate while other people might feel that their gender changes over time?

Maybe. But I think it's quite a fundamental point that trans rights should not be built around this issue, whatever its answer. In an analogous way, gay rights also should not be built on questions to do with nature/nurture. Even if such a thing as a 'gay genetic code' could be identified, it needs not to matter either way: it needs to be entirely irrelevant to the structure of gay rights. And indeed it does appear that obsessions with the answer to such questions wrt homosexuality, from members of the generation of psychiatrists to which Blanchard et all belong, who considered homosexuality to be a disease, are now fading.

 

[bimble]

Although it is of course a fallacy to conflate a lack of clear boundaries with equivalency. Hence why 'gender is not a dichotomy' is a different statment from 'gender does not exist'.

I don't think anyone has said that gender doesn't exist, just offered their very different opinions on what it actually is, what its made of.

 

[Pickman's model]

My opinions on the matter are all on that thread.

stop channelling ou

 

[Santino]

I'd rather be patronised.

'Patronising' means talking down to someone.

 

[JimW]

I can't get my head around the idea that a social construct, as I understand gender to be, is innate. How is that different from "human nature" arguments about social hierarchy, for example: I.e. back-projecting a complex social phenomenon on to certain tendencies. I've followed the thread so ought to have spotted competing definitions of gender but still not a clue.

 

[SpookyFrank]

'Patronising' means talking down to someone.

And what does 'irony' mean?

 

[kabbes]

Although it is of course a fallacy to conflate a lack of clear boundaries with equivalency.

Maybe it is a surjection though.

 

[kabbes]

And what does 'irony' mean?

"Something SpookyFrank has apparently missed"?

 

[8ball]

LOL.

I'm your messenger boy now?

Exactly how long is the history of "transracialism"? And does the reality of "race" have the same status of the reality of biological sex, or the reality of gender in your mind?

 

[SpookyFrank]

I don't think anyone has said that gender doesn't exist, just offered their very different opinions on what it actually is, what its made of.

I was giving an example to illustrate a point. I chose the example because it contained an absurd proposition that nobody would actually make.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

I can't get my head around the idea that a social construct, as I understand gender to be, is innate. How is that different from "human nature" arguments about social hierarchy, for example: I.e. back-projecting a complex social phenomenon on to certain tendencies. I've followed the thread so ought to have spotted competing definitions of gender but still not a clue.

What they actually mean is that their 'inner sense of what it feels like to be a man or a woman' is innate.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

I'm your messenger boy now?

Exactly how long is the history of "transracialism"? And does the reality of "race" have the same status of the reality of biological sex, or the reality of gender in your mind?

Interesting. You don't answer my question but expect me to answer two of yours!

 

[SpookyFrank]

"Something SpookyFrank has apparently missed"?

OK this is now officially too meta for me, I'm out.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

And what does 'irony' mean?

A bit like iron?

 

[SpookyFrank]

I can't get my head around the idea that a social construct, as I understand gender to be, is innate. How is that different from "human nature" arguments about social hierarchy, for example: I.e. back-projecting a complex social phenomenon on to certain tendencies. I've followed the thread so ought to have spotted competing definitions of gender but still not a clue.

Is something 'innate' also necessarily timeless and permanent? Or can it mean simply, originating from within the self?

 

[8ball]

Interesting. You don't answer my question but expect me to answer two of yours!

I implied my opinions on the matter well enough, I think.
Which is that conflating the case of one fantasist with a much more complex issue is a bit insulating

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

I still have no idea what qualities this "inner sense of man or woman" is supposed to have.

None at all. I have zero fucking idea. And no one can explain it. It's SO FRUSTRATING. If one is going to say that some has a particular quality, then one should fucking be able to state what that quality fucking is.

It's all smoke and mirrors, afaics because until someone can quantify it we might as well be talking about nothing.