Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

[Athos]

He's repeated it plenty of times. His idea is that the two are different because every child grows up with an awareness of gender roles whilst it is possible to imagine a child growing up with no idea that such a category as race exists at all. I think this is a bit threadbare as an argument tbh but that's it far as I can tell.

Ah, I see. Though, even if that's true (and I'm sceptical) I don't see how the timing of that consciousness is so significant as to fundamentally undermine any analogy between the two.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

He's repeated it plenty of times. His idea is that the two are different because every child grows up with an awareness of gender roles whilst it is possible to imagine a child growing up with no idea that such a category as race exists at all. I think this is a bit threadbare as an argument tbh but that's it far as I can tell.

Not really. 'grows up with an awareness of gender roles' is far too weak a way to put it. Rejecting the idea that there may be an innate component to gender identity (which I don't entirely, but for the sake of argument let me do so here), gender is something into which we are socialised from birth. As Shirley Chisholm said, it starts 'from the moment the doctor announces "It's a girl"'.

 

[MochaSoul]

Becuase OF COURSE women have womany identities (OBVIOUSLY)

Precisely!

 

[TopCat]

But he's our sociopath. You've not served enough time in these parts to get away with the nasty personal digs.

I dunno. People have dished it out so have to eat it up too.

 

[TopCat]

There must have been a point, however brief, when there was only one member?

Yeah The Editor and he made up rows with himself to promote the site!!

 

[Athos]

Not really. Rejecting the idea that there may be an innate component to gender identity (which I don't entirely, but for the sake of argument let me do so here), gender is something into which we are socialised from birth. As Shirley Chisholm said, it starts 'from the moment the doctor announces "It's a girl"'.

Why would such a claimed difference in timing undermine the idea of transracialism? If anything, it should do the opposite i.e. facilitate less fixed ideas racial self-identity, resulting in more fluidity.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm on my phone, so posts aren't numbered. Would you mind quoting it, please?

if your phone's anything like mine, turn it sideways and you should be able to see post numbers.

 

[Athos]

if your phone's anything like mine, turn it sideways and you should be able to see post numbers.

Wow! I never knew that. Thanks.

 

[8ball]

...

edit: <because initial response wasn't v nice>

Will come back to some of that later, but a lot of it is attributing things I don't believe and some of the rest of it is pretty absurd.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Why would such a claimed difference in timing undermine the idea of transracialism? If anything, it should do the opposite i.e. facilitate less fixed ideas racial self-identity, resulting in more fluidity.

Not got time to do this full justice, but wrt Dolezal, transculturalism is probably a better term for it than transracialism. From what I've read by her, her concept of racial identity, including the categories she uses, is firmly embedded in US history and culture and doesn't make much sense when taken out of it.

 

[Athos]

Not got time to do this full justice, but wrt Dolezal, transculturalism is probably a better term for it than transracialism. From what I've read by her, her concept of racial identity, including the categories she uses, is firmly embedded in US history and culture and doesn't make much sense when taken out of it.

Not convinced. If anything, transracialism ought to be easier elsewhere, given the US's focus on race as a function of ancestry, that's not universal; Tuvel gives the example of Brazil, where ancestry is a less significant component of race.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

Not convinced. If anything, transracialism ought to be easier elsewhere, given the US's focus on race as a function of ancestry, that's not universal; Tuvel gives the example of Brazil, where ancestry is a less significant component of race.

Did you see this piece by Jesse Singal on the controversy?

This Is What a Modern-Day Witch Hunt Looks Like

 

[bimble]

That ^ is very depressing.

 

[Pickman's model]

That ^ is very depressing.

very much so, when there's been no attempt to ask any of the hundreds of academics attacked in that piece why they attached their name to the open letter.

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

edit: <because initial response wasn't v nice>

Will come back to some of that later, but a lot of it is attributing things I don't believe and some of the rest of it is pretty absurd.

Haha! I didn't see your mean response. But yes, I wasn't being shitty with you. If you think some of my train of thought is absurd then I'd be happy to hear it!

 

[Athos]

very much so, when there's been no attempt to ask any of the hundreds of academics attacked in that piece why they attached their name to the open letter.

Their reasons were set out within the open letter itself (and are largely rebutted in the aricle).

 

[Pickman's model]

Their reasons were set out within the open letter itself (and are largely rebutted in the aricle).

yes. i know. none of those rebutting points seem to have been put to any of the letter's signatories: that's my point. it would have made for a rather more useful and interesting article rather than one which reaches for the moral panic and superficial invocation of witch-hunting.

 

[Athos]

yes. i know. none of those rebutting points seem to have been put to any of the letter's signatories: that's my point. it would have made for a rather more useful and interesting article rather than one which reaches for the moral panic and superficial invocation of witch-hunting.

How do you know they weren't put to each and every one of the signatories? Even if they weren't, given there's nothng to suggest the criticisms in their open letter were put to Tuvel, it seems a reasonable way to proceed.

 

[MochaSoul]

Not convinced. If anything, transracialism ought to be easier elsewhere, given the US's focus on race as a function of ancestry, that's not universal; Tuvel gives the example of Brazil, where ancestry is a less significant component of race.

That's semantics. In Brazil, yes, ancestry is not the main component but people's skin hues are graded hierarchically. It's more insidious because it's harder to define.
I can't read the paper. I'm going by the witch-hunt article MY posted. I'd like to know what Tuvel has to say about objections to Dolezal's reinforcing the colour line. As I think I said on the other thread, I object to her presuming to know and define what it means to be black, by her deception and subsequent justifications. Blackness is not culture. You can throw away culture. You cannot get rid of the fact that once you're out the house you cease to be person and become black person in other people's eyes.

 

[8ball]

Blackness is not culture. You can throw away culture. You cannot get rid of the fact that once you're out the house you cease to be person and become black person in other people's eyes.

That *is* culture, though. Although I'd figured most people don't see black people as non-people.

 

[Pickman's model]

How do you know they weren't put to each and every one of the signatories? Even if they weren't, given there's nothng to suggest the criticisms in their open letter were put to Tuvel, it seems a reasonable way to proceed.

How do I know? Because the author of that piece would have mentioned if they had

 

[Red Cat]

I offered that paper as background to someone who was incapable of offering a definition of gender identity. As I explain above, what transgenderists mean by 'gender identity' is slightly different, that they 'feel' they have an 'inner sense' of being a woman or a man. I think what the author describes in that piece as 'gender identity' has more in common with concepts of female or male socialisation than what transgenderists mean by 'gender identity'.

The psychoanalytic idea is that we become ourselves through processes of identification: the child is identified (not labelled, but imagined, thought about, consciously and unconsciously) in the mind of parents and the child's own identifications ( I am like mummy, I am like daddy) in an ongoing dynamic relationship. It's quite complex, the child plays a more active role in the development of their sense of who they are compared to what I understand as socialisation which has always appeared very children are done to by adults to me.

 

[Red Cat]

Not really. 'grows up with an awareness of gender roles' is far too weak a way to put it. Rejecting the idea that there may be an innate component to gender identity (which I don't entirely, but for the sake of argument let me do so here), gender is something into which we are socialised from birth. As Shirley Chisholm said, it starts 'from the moment the doctor announces "It's a girl"'.

Or the midwife.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Or the midwife.

Could have been, but the actual quote, which I was repeating from memory is:

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, 'It's a girl'

 

[pengaleng]

women cant be doctors??

midwives perform caesarians??

wtf is going on here??

 

[Red Cat]

women cant be doctors??

Yes. But there is no need for a doctor at an uncomplicated labour. It's not a medical procedure.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The psychoanalytic idea is that we become ourselves through processes of identification: the child is identified (not labelled, but imagined, thought about, consciously and unconsciously) in the mind of parents and the child's own identifications ( I am like mummy, I am like daddy) in an ongoing dynamic relationship. It's quite complex, the child plays a more active role in the development of their sense of who they are compared to what I understand as socialisation which has always appeared very children are done to by adults to me.

When I use the word socialisation, I use it thinking of it as an active process very much as you describe. And this is where I think an innate component may come into play - in that we are born primed to look for certain kinds of things in the world. That we are primed to look for language and also a sense of morality are relatively uncontroversial ideas; that this might extend to something like a gender identity is seemingly a lot more controversial.

 

[pengaleng]

this thread makes me want to just die cus i feel so sick reading it lol

Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough. Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

 

[Red Cat]

this thread makes me want to just die cus i feel so sick reading it lol

Call a doctor.

 

[pengaleng]

niiiiiiight nuuuurrrrrseeee