Transgender is it just me that is totally perplexed?

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm confused and I'm genuinely wondering if I've missed something here. Miranda Yardley I believe you prefer gender neutral pronouns for yourself- and you are opposed to using feminine pronouns for trans women (and presumably masculine pronouns for trans men). I think I've got all that right.


Why don't you use gender neutral pronouns for other transsexual people? Or for that matter, why don't you prefer masculine pronouns for yourself?

Dunno what they've said elsewhere, but I've followed what they have been saying on here pretty closely. It started with a statement that they are going to uphold the right of people not to be forced into using a pronoun that is contrary to their beliefs. A little bit later they then took up misgendering with a large degree of gusto themself (which they had not done previously), as if to demonstrate the point. It climaxed with them being a total cunt towards two posters here (in one case, not even realising what a twat they were making of themself by getting their stupid fucking assumptions wrong).

If MY thinks that's a misrepresentation, let them say so, please. What about the above is wrong? I'm being careful not to misrepresent them here as imo it has important implications.

It reminds me of nothing more than the defence homophobic Northern Irish bakers gave for refusing to serve homosexual customers. Let's call out homophobia when we see it, and let's give this shit a name as well.

 

[sunnysidedown]

On that ideological question, I favour the former (largely for compassinate reasons, and the balance of harms); that doesn't make it any more 'true'.

The pompous plonker award of 2018 has an early runner.

 

[TopCat]

you contribute to the 'problems' if you really actually felt like this then you'd stop presenting yourself as a woman if you werent already dead inside.

actually you might find more people willing to listen to yer shit.

Cunt post thus far 2018

 

[pengaleng]

glad i got you monitoring me 5/10 for timely response tho, could do better

it's a legitimate point in response to their position.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

To add to that. Of course, MY and their chums think mtf trans rights activists are by definition men's rights activists. But they need to recognise that many others do not accept that. That's them imposing their ideology again. It's not a question of us needing to be edumacated cos we're missing some of the important facts.

I think you misunderstand me, this is not about me and my 'chums'. It's a statement of opinion that that transgender rights are men's rights. The interpretation of 'men's rights' as a value system is of course open to interpretation, as the other poster showed they suggested men's rights are misogynistic, a strangely intolerant position.

What is a 'transgender woman'? At what point does someone come to be able to claim that label and on what basis? What moral rights follow and at what point, are they inherited on a simple declaration 'I am transgender' or does there have to be transition? What should be involved in that?

At what point does someone who has been living 'as a man' become this 'transgender woman', and thus rights accrue 'as a woman'? Are women to have this imposed, to share resources and spaces with someone who hitherto has lived 'as a man'? Or do they have any recourse to object?

 

[Miranda Yardley]

They repeatedly set up a spurious dichotomy between opponents' ideology and their reality/ science.

That's a factually incorrect statement. Please don't misrepresent me.

 

[kabbes]

There’s a woman in my team from China. She told me that they have no different pronouns for men and women in Chinese. That’s interesting in and of itself, I think. But more interesting to me is that when she first arrived in the UK, she says she had massive difficulty in identifying when to use each pronoun, and used to regularly refer to men as “she” and women as “he”. Now, that either says something trivial about learning language or it says something really quite profound about the way we learn to categorise. I’m not sure which.

 

[bimble]

huh.
"The character for "she" [..] was invented in the early twentieth century due to western influence; prior to this, the character indicating "he" today was used for both genders — it contains the "person" radical, which, as noted above, is not gender-specific."
Gender neutrality in genderless languages - Wikipedia

 

[Miranda Yardley]

'I don't make the rules'

It's like arguing with a religious person. Their pov is validated by an external authority.

Well, no it isn't really. If one accepts that a woman is an adult human female, and that 'trans women' are male, one follows the other. It's reasoning not appeal to authority. The suggestion by activists and others (including on this board) that a man, or a woman, is someone who identifies themselves as such is itself an ideological position, and it's what this is foundational upon and the consequences which follow that matter. Does treating what it is to be a man or a woman as being an identity help any of us? Does it help us to challenge negative stereotypes for men, and women?

As cultural categories, both have a set of 'rules' society makes: these are stereotypes, and there is a difference between being born into these and opting into them. Likewise there is a difference between opting into positive (imposed) stereotypes, which could be seen as a positive act of rebellion, and opting into negative (imposed) stereotypes, which when approached from the position of being part of the powerful group has negative consequences as it reinforces negativity.

One of the biggest issues I see with imposing identity-based categorisation is it appears to be anathema to any debate, as the person making the claim it their own authority on the validity of their identity-based claim. This is where post-structuralism and post-modernism begin to strangle the left, because suddenly we are unable to discuss or debate social categories and hierarchies, the very thing the left is supposed to challenge.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

Nobody here is disputing the reality of biological facts. But MY posts in a way that explicitly states that those facts mandate a particular ideology, that there is no other possible way to think in light of those facts. That's akin to religious thinking - 'it's not my law, guv, it's god's law'. And ironically enough, many of those with whom MY's group now make common cause think in exactly that way.

I don't think you have been reading my posts here very closely. Facts are facts, yes they are open to interpretation, and yes two ideologies can interpret facts in different ways yet have similar outcomes.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There’s a woman in my team from China. She told me that they have no different pronouns for men and women in Chinese. That’s interesting in and of itself, I think. But more interesting to me is that when she first arrived in the UK, she says she had massive difficulty in identifying when to use each pronoun, and used to regularly refer to men as “she” and women as “he”. Now, that either says something trivial about learning language or it says something really quite profound about the way we learn to categorise. I’m not sure which.

The former. English speakers learning French or Spanish will regularly get their gender agreement wrong with adjectives because we don't have gender agreement with adjectives in English.

Different languages have gender embedded in them in different ways (and some not at all), but I don't think that's too significant tbh about wider things. It's just a problem we're stuck with where we do have different gender forms.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

I'm confused and I'm genuinely wondering if I've missed something here. Miranda Yardley I believe you prefer gender neutral pronouns for yourself- and you are opposed to using feminine pronouns for trans women (and presumably masculine pronouns for trans men). I think I've got all that right.

Why don't you use gender neutral pronouns for other transsexual people? Or for that matter, why don't you prefer masculine pronouns for yourself?

My starting point was not giving a damn about pronouns. I do object to the unconditional expectation that we are submit to someone's subjective sense of personal identity, or suffer consequences. And I think that the way pronouns have become such a tinder box is bad for trans people, as treating them as indicative of hate creates fear and cultural instability. It's not hate to 'misgender'.

As far as it goes for me, I have no pronoun preference, I am bigger than that. I support anyone who as an act of political rebellion refuses to submit to calling a man a woman.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

It climaxed with them being a total cunt towards two posters here (in one case, not even realising what a twat they were making of themself by getting their stupid fucking assumptions wrong).

You are aware that use of the word 'cunt' is misogynistic?

Also, I don't know what it is you are referring to here.

It reminds me of nothing more than the defence homophobic Northern Irish bakers gave for refusing to serve homosexual customers. Let's call out homophobia when we see it, and let's give this shit a name as well.

How is this even the same?

 

[kabbes]

The former. English speakers learning French or Spanish will regularly get their gender agreement wrong with adjectives because we don't have gender agreement with adjectives in English.

Different languages have gender embedded in them in different ways (and some not at all), but I don't think that's too significant tbh about wider things. It's just a problem we're stuck with where we do have different gender forms.

I think your premise has led to the wrong conclusion. We have difficulty getting gender agreement with adjectives in French because we don't think of the noun in question as masculine or feminine. We haven't categorised things like "chair" as male or female in our heads, and so learning which it is becomes difficult for us. The extension of this logic implies that the reason my friend X (the Chinese get the best initials) struggled to apply the correct pronoun to people is maybe because she also was not categorising by gender in her head. And to some extent, this is also her interpretation of why she struggled with it.

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

There’s a woman in my team from China. She told me that they have no different pronouns for men and women in Chinese. That’s interesting in and of itself, I think. But more interesting to me is that when she first arrived in the UK, she says she had massive difficulty in identifying when to use each pronoun, and used to regularly refer to men as “she” and women as “he”. Now, that either says something trivial about learning language or it says something really quite profound about the way we learn to categorise. I’m not sure which.

It's exactly the same in Hungarian (which was my first language). There are no pronouns for anything, people or objects. So nothing comes under feminine or masculine at all. There are occasions where professions might add the suffix "nő" (woman) but it's quite rare. So teachers are "teachers" or "teacher woman", but nowadays they are kinda used interchangeably.

Infact the term "gender" (nemű) in Hungarian literally translated means "gaseous" or "essence" or "soul.

So even the term gender in different languages will conjure up different images and ideas.

Polish is a right head fuck for gender (Linguistically speaking) because there are three of the fuckers and they all have to match other grammatical components. It's a headfuck not to misgender people, children, inanimate objects.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think your premise has led to the wrong conclusion. We have difficulty getting gender agreement with adjectives in French because we don't think of the noun in question as masculine or feminine. We haven't categorised things like "chair" as male or female, and so learning which it is becomes difficult for us. The extension of this logic implies that the reason my friend X (the Chinese get the best initials) struggled to apply the correct pronoun to people is maybe because she also was not categorising by gender in her head. And to some extent, this is also her interpretation of why she struggled with it.

People also get adjectives wrong in talking about themselves, where we do think of the noun in question as masculine or feminine. We have to get used to choosing the right form of a word so that it agrees. I would still contend that this is mostly a trivial fact about learning languages. English-speaking learners of Russian then have the headfuck (for us) of remembering to change the form of a noun depending on its function - subject, object etc.

 

[8ball]

There’s a woman in my team from China. She told me that they have no different pronouns for men and women in Chinese. That’s interesting in and of itself, I think. But more interesting to me is that when she first arrived in the UK, she says she had massive difficulty in identifying when to use each pronoun, and used to regularly refer to men as “she” and women as “he”. Now, that either says something trivial about learning language or it says something really quite profound about the way we learn to categorise. I’m not sure which.

My grandmother was Dutch and used to mix up "he" and "she" (usually defaulting to "she" for both genders). Which is much odder given the relative similarity of English and Dutch and the fact that Dutch has more gender stuff going on than English.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You are aware that use of the word 'cunt' is misogynistic?

You are aware that there are different opinions about that?

 

[bimble]

I grew up speaking German, where everything is either masculine feminine or neutral, which when i think about it now is pretty weird, how it gets into your head. In German for instance all cats are she's and all dogs he.

 

[JimW]

It's exactly the same in Hungarian (which was my first language). There are no pronouns for anything, people or objects. So nothing comes under feminine or masculine at all. There are occasions where professions might add the suffix "nő" (woman) but it's quite rare. So teachers are "teachers" or "teacher woman", but nowadays they are kinda used interchangeably.

Infact the term "gender" (nemű) in Hungarian literally translated means "gaseous" or "essence" or "soul.

So even the term gender in different languages will conjure up different images and ideas.

Polish is a right head fuck for gender (Linguistically speaking) because there are three of the fuckers and they all have to match other grammatical components. It's a headfuck not to misgender people, children, inanimate objects.

One depressing recent phenomenon in China has been a tendency to add a prefix denoting woman to non-gendered job descriptions like police officer etc, also a return to old-fashioned and far more sexist terms for spouse. I persist with the revolutionary era unisex 爱人 which is dying out.

 

[Miranda Yardley]

You are aware that there are different opinions about that?

Sure! We are entitled to disagree on things yanno.

 

[8ball]

I grew up speaking German, where everything is either masculine feminine or neutral, which when i think about it now is pretty weird, how it gets into your head. In German for instance all cats are she's and all dogs he.

I'd always wondered about that - ie. whether your female dog would be called 'she' and dogs in general were 'he', or wtf was going on, and whether conversations got very confusing at the vet's office.

 

[8ball]

Sure! We are entitled to disagree on things yanno.

In Soviet Urban 'cunt' is an equal opportunities insult.

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

I'd always wondered about that - ie. whether your female dog would be called 'she' and dogs in general were 'he', or wtf was going on, and whether conversations got very confusing at the vet's office.

Mate when I try to speak my shitty Polish (which is REALLY shitty) I fuck that bit up ALL THE TIME. Whichever one I think it is it's ALWAYS wrong.

I think you use "your" to match the noun, (so if a dog is masculine "your" would be masculine even in the owner is a female?) but honestly that's probably wrong..

 

[8ball]

The only thing I know in Polish is "not my circus, not my monkeys".

Which my work colleagues think means "I'll get onto it right away"...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Mate when I try to speak my shitty Polish (which is REALLY shitty) I fuck that bit up ALL THE TIME. Whichever one I think it is it's ALWAYS wrong.

I think you use "your" to match the noun, (so if a dog was male "your" would be masculine) but honestly that's probably wrong..

A cat is masculine in Spanish. El gato. But Spanish doesn't require the use of pronouns, so that particular problem doesn't necessarily arise. Each language has its own unique head fucks.

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

I just checked..

Twój pies (your dog) - masculine dog so "your" is masculine even if yer a lady.
Twoja ryba (your fish) fish is feminine so "your" is feminine even if u r gentlemenz

See? Its fucked.

 

[MochaSoul]

A cat is masculine in Spanish. El gato. But Spanish doesn't require the use of pronouns, so that particular problem doesn't necessarily arise. Each language has its own unique head fucks.

Female cat in Spanish is "la gata"

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

I love Hungarian cuz we don't need to worry about this shitty pronoun bullshit at all, no one gets misgendered! The trans debate in Hungary is all about whether people have feminine or masculine essences or not.

I still tend to do a lot of my "working out" thinking in Hungarian when it comes to complex issues because the language is so malleable it's much easier to come up quickly with a solution. On the flipside no one ever gets where you're coming from so you gotta translate your working out.

Mad, it is.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Female cat in Spanish is "la gata"

Yes, true that does exist. Bad example. Caballo for horse would be a better one.