[HN Gopher] The erasure of women from online pregnancy literature
___________________________________________________________________
The erasure of women from online pregnancy literature
Author : tomohawk
Score : 178 points
Date : 2022-11-19 20:54 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (quillette.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (quillette.com)
| andirk wrote:
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This won't ever be resolved so long as there is insistence on
| equating biological sex with what gender someone identifies as.
| Biological differences are real, regardless of what your brain
| tells you to feel.
| JBits wrote:
| Biological differences are real but lots of them can be changed
| by hormones. People caring about how they are categorised is
| universally central to a lot of people, this article
| illustrates that. I think ciswomen have the right to be upset
| about changes in language but transmen deserve no less rights
| for being a minority. How different ideas of how language
| should be used can be reconciled is not something I know the
| answer to, but denying the biological reality of changes
| experienced by people who are trans is discrimination. I don't
| think the complaints expressed by this writer are invalid,
| quite the opposite, but her support for gender criticals makes
| everything hypocritical.
| socialismisok wrote:
| The concept of "biological sex" is not even a binary, and it's
| treated differently in different parts of the world. So we
| haven't settled on definitions of biological sex outside as a
| species yet.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Thank you. I've made this comment three times now on the this
| thread.
|
| Why is it that those making the most 'biological fact'
| arguments ignore actual biology.
|
| ffs
| cbeach wrote:
| houstonn wrote:
| Biology is crystal clear on this. There are 2 sexes, one with
| small mobile gametes and the other with large, immobile ones.
| It's binary.
| socialismisok wrote:
| That covers approximately 99% of cases. But are you willing
| to write off the 1% of people that doesn't cover?
|
| I'd rather make sure that the language I use includes them
| where possible.
| eddic wrote:
| Clarifying question: are you saying that 1% of humans
| don't produce either small mobile gametes or large,
| immobile ones? In that case what do they produce?
|
| I've noticed that in the debate around 'binary' (on
| Twitter, I confess), some people claim that no human has
| ever been observed who didn't produce either sperm or ova
| (and never both). I'd like to know whether that's true.
| adamsbriscoe wrote:
| Not sure what you're referring to but it's not 1
| percent.. it's not even 0.01 percent.
|
| Cursory search:
| https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20190503/study-
| abo...
| socialismisok wrote:
| That link says 0.13%, first off, and it only includes
| people who have visible genital differences.
|
| Many, many more people have different genetic
| configurations that can manifest well after birth.
|
| I'll admit I rounded up to one percent from something
| that was a large fractional percent.
| adamsbriscoe wrote:
| Um no it doesn't. It says 1.3 out of 1000 births, is that
| what you thought you were referring to? I'm willing to
| give you the benefit of the doubt.
|
| "Many, many more people have different genetic
| configurations that can manifest well after birth."
|
| Do you have any references for this?
| knaekhoved wrote:
| Language ought to "cleave reality at the joints" - i.e.
| approximate an information-theoretically optimal
| encoding.
|
| If you start screwing over the 99.9%ile case to slightly
| improve the remaining 0.1%, you are not approximating an
| optimal encoding.
| detaro wrote:
| How does referring to someone as "pregnant person"
| instead of "pregnant woman" "screw them over"?
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Read the article. Its a lot of other things baked into
| that.
| [deleted]
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| > I'd rather make sure that the language I use includes
| them where possible.
|
| Man/Woman does. As do Male/Female. Disorders of Sexual
| Development are disorders, not new sexes. A woman without
| breasts or with an extra X chromosome is a much a woman
| as a man without arms or with an extra toe is still a
| man.
|
| > are you willing to write off the [people] that doesn't
| cover
|
| Those are weird made-up scare words. Nobody is writing
| them off. What does what even mean? We just don't
| recognize their identity or their identity terminology as
| being meaningful, in the same way an atheist feels about
| their religion.
|
| They're just as welcome, or not, as they were without it.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| socialismisok wrote:
| 80 million people is not a rounding error.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| When we are talking 8 billion it is exactly that
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Where do you get the 80M number from? It seems like you
| may be off several orders of magnitude.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Yes -- discussing a bimodal distribution as a bimodal
| distribution is useful, even in the presence of outliers
| and data points bridging the two peaks.
|
| "Man" and "woman" are names for those nodes in the
| bimodal distribution of traits, as correlated with sex.
| Same as "cow" and "bull", or "hen" and "cock", or "doe"
| and "stag", or "female" and "male".
|
| I'd rather my language be able to discuss the experience
| of the 99%+ than become incapable of discussing basic
| facts (like apes being sexually dimorphic) because
| reality might offend outliers.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| 1% is nothing then in the grand scheme of things.
| socialismisok wrote:
| 99% of the universe is hydrogen or helium. I very much
| believe 1% is super important in the grand scheme of
| things.
|
| You are saying "80 million people is nothing". I
| disagree, I think 80 million people is a lot of people.
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| > I think 80 million people is a lot of people ...
|
| and thus, unasked by intersex people and without a clear
| theory of how this would help, you would destroy the
| concept of sex-based-rights which keep four billion
| people and the world's children safe?
| mindslight wrote:
| > _99% of the universe is hydrogen or helium._
|
| And the field where that prominence matters,
| astrophysics, refers to anything that isn't hydrogen or
| helium as a "metal". Definitions are fluid. Insisting
| that everyone tediously say "people who can get pregnant"
| rather than the simple "women" (with the more precise
| existentially quantified meaning being clear from
| context) is extremely intolerant.
| houstonn wrote:
| 0.018%
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
| socialismisok wrote:
| Or 1.7%, linked from that paper. I don't think there's a
| consensus number, I picked something in the middle and
| approximated to a whole integer.
| striking wrote:
| So people with DSD / intersex people simply no longer exist
| now?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| My understanding is that "differences in sex development"
| or "disorders of sex development" is now the preferred
| terminology. See for instance:
|
| "Disorders of sex development, or DSD (previously called
| intersex), includes a range of conditions that lead to
| abnormal development of the sex organs and atypical
| genitalia ..."
|
| https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/conditions/disorders
| -of...
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| They exist and are the exception that makes the rule.
| homonculus1 wrote:
| That's a birth defect, not a sex.
| knaekhoved wrote:
| Stop using intersex people (who have extremely rare
| physiological diseases) as a political tool to justify
| transsexual ideology, when >99% of transsexuals do not
| have any such disease.
| foldr wrote:
| While you're right that there's no connection between
| being trans and being intersex (except that intersex
| people are probably more likely to be misgendered at
| birth), it's not the case that intersex people are
| 'extremely rare'. Depending on definition, we are talking
| about ~1% of people. For comparison, that is e.g. around
| the percentage of men who are 6'4 or taller (in the US).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Depending on definition, we are talking about ~1% of
| people
|
| You have to use an extremely expansive definition in
| order to reach 1%. So expansive that it renders the term
| meaningless.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| This is not an endorsement of any particular take in the
| thread, but this seemed like an appropriate place to
| correct a mistake regarding the frequency of intersex
| births and link out to some articles for the curious.
|
| That 1% number comes from the Fausto-Sterling survey
| which incorrectly lumps in Klinefelter syndrome, Turner
| syndrome, and late-onset adrenal hyperplasia. Eliminating
| those diseases yields a rate no higher than 0.018%, 2
| orders of magnitude lower as the upper bound[1]. Only a
| small portion have cells for producing both types of
| gametes, only about 5% of all intersex people[2][3].
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
|
| [2] https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001669.htm
|
| [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_hermaphroditism#
| :~:text....
| foldr wrote:
| The controversy about what counts as 'intersex' is mostly
| pointless, as far as I can tell, as the term neither has
| (nor requires) a precise definition. I think in this
| context it makes sense to include any condition that
| blurs the edges of the gender binary as traditionally
| understood in society. If you look at the details of e.g.
| Klinefelter syndrome from this perspective, it's not
| difficult to see why it might be seen as part of the
| intersex spectrum:
|
| >broad hips, poor muscle tone and slower than usual
| muscle growth, reduced facial and body hair that starts
| growing later than usual, a small penis and testicles,
| and enlarged breasts (gynaecomastia)
|
| It's by no means a settled matter what does or doesn't
| count as 'intersex'. I suspect that few reputable
| researchers would waste time engaging in such a pointless
| debate over terminology. Some relevant points in this
| article:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5808814/
|
| All that said, one can, if one wishes, cherry pick the
| smallest available estimate of the number of 'intersex'
| people and thereby dismiss the issues raised by these
| people on the grounds that they're small in number. I'm
| not sure how much scrutiny the logic of that rhetorical
| move would withstand.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Intersex people are different, they have a biological
| variance.
| [deleted]
| houstonn wrote:
| That argument is a fundamental misunderstanding about the
| nature of biological sex, which is connected to the
| distinct type of gametes (sex cells) that an organism
| produces. As a broad concept, males are the sex that
| produce small gametes (sperm) and females produce large
| gametes (ova). There are no intermediate gametes, which
| is why there is no spectrum of sex. Biological sex in
| humans is a binary system.
| eganist wrote:
| Regardless, it misses the distinction between biological
| sex v. a mind's gender identity, and _solely by the sheer
| quantity of neurons and possible interconnects,_ it 's
| impossible to say that every person's brain strictly
| aligns with one of two modes of operation. (if anyone who
| specializes in gender studies knows more on this topic
| and believes I'm summarizing this--or even stating the
| problem--incorrectly, please step in; this isn't my
| specialty)
|
| In fact, it's only appropriate to say that every brain is
| unique in how it processes the self and the world, and
| that while for the majority of people it's easy or even
| innate to identify with certain characteristics, there
| are minorities for whom this isn't the case.
|
| We need to express inclusive empathy where we can, even
| if the _only_ reason for doing so is to make sure that
| when we fall outside societally defined structures, we
| ourselves can also continue to be respected. Ideally we
| 'd do so because we're trying to be good people, but my
| point is, even a selfish person should reach the same
| conclusion.
| layer8 wrote:
| We should also acknowledge that language more often than
| not works in approximations and generalizations, and
| usually everyone still understands what is meant. There
| needs to be some flexibility on both sides.
| dmix wrote:
| This is an important point and it's lost in these
| debates.
|
| The new cool thing is to pretend context/intent doesn't
| exist _, that words and expressions should always be
| looked at in isolation. Even though it 's a fundamental
| part of language and how the brain perception systems
| work to contextualize and loosely categorize everything
| based on the current set of information in a particular
| scenario.
|
| Words/language is messy, highly flexible, and rarely
| strictly defined. For good reason.
|
| _Mostly so people can win internet arguments and feel
| superior/victimized.
| 762236 wrote:
| Hormones help regulate the brain and there are sex
| differences in the hormones. I have a hard time believing
| that someone can be in the wrong body, as the brain is a
| part of the body.
| eganist wrote:
| > Hormones help regulate the brain and there are sex
| differences in the hormones.
|
| Does every cell in every body react to hormones etc. the
| same way? There are differences between each and every
| person on the planet in terms of how each cell in their
| body reacts to things like hormones, neurotransmitters,
| and other signaling molecules that manifest either subtly
| or extremely. Anything from a person's height to their
| temperament to their hunger (literally, or figuratively
| e.g drive) can vary based on the production of and
| reception of these transmitters, and every single
| person's body varies in every facet of the above based on
| environmental and genetic considerations.
|
| > I have a hard time believing that someone can be in the
| wrong body, as the brain is a part of the body.
|
| That's an empathy thing.
| 762236 wrote:
| That doesn't mean that those other considerations are
| stronger than the hormonal differences due to sex. The
| sex differences for testosterone are large.
|
| > That's an empathy thing.
|
| You're welcome to empathize with my inability to believe
| that someone can be in the wrong body.
| rolobio wrote:
| There is absolutely a consensus (well, there was until about
| 5 years ago). People point at exceptions to prove the rule is
| entirely false. How many arms do humans have? Two. "Well my
| uncle was born without arms! So clearly humans have an
| unknown amount of arms". Men and women are real, there are a
| couple of exceptions, but not as many as people imagine.
|
| I expect this to be promptly removed from the front page. I'm
| happy to see taboo subjects being spoken of again.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Third gender people and intersex people have existed as
| long as humans have.
|
| Western cultures in the past couple decades have started
| acknowledging this, but the concept is not foreign to all
| countries.
|
| And the changes proposed are to include as many people as
| possible. You might say, people are _typically_ born with
| two arms, sometimes fewer. It doesn 't remove the fact that
| most people express as 2 armed, while including the people
| who don't.
| rolobio wrote:
| No one is denying exceptions exist. Humans have two arms.
| Anything else is an exception to the rule, but the rule
| still applies.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Atoms are binary in your model, every atom is hydrogen or
| helium, or an exception?
|
| I believe that we can be inclusive of those exceptions
| and treat them as unique things that are within the
| definition, rather than placing them outside the
| definition. I would rather spend the energy to evolve
| definitions to include people rather than tell people
| they are marginalia.
|
| It sounds like you disagree.
| rolobio wrote:
| I don't understand what atoms have to do with gender.
|
| It is not inclusive to call a woman a "birthing person"
| it's actually excluding the women who can't give birth.
| Are women who can't become pregnant men? Of course not.
|
| We have let politeness run away with us. It's time to
| kindly, but firmly tell people there are two genders.
| It's not a kindness to lie to a person, even if they ask
| for the lie.
| detaro wrote:
| > _it's actually excluding the women who can't give
| birth_
|
| _Not_ out of the group of "women", so "Are women who
| can't become pregnant men?" doesn't make sense.
|
| EDIT: and indeed the creepy arguments centering womanhood
| around periods or pregnancy, which _do actually exclude_
| women who can 't give birth from womanhood, tend to come
| from a subset(!) of the people that also are strongly
| against such language, not the people for it.
| socialismisok wrote:
| I think you might be misunderstanding the way language is
| evolving here.
|
| Woman who can't give birth are still women. Women who
| cannot menstruate are still women. We are not removing
| anyone from the set of women.
|
| What we are saying is that, in addition to women there
| are also people who do not recognize themselves as women,
| but who can give birth or menstruate.
|
| So, we could say "women, men, and other gendered people
| who give birth..." or "birthing women, men, and other
| gendered people".
|
| But that's a mouthful. All genders are people, so we
| choose "people who give birth" since it includes women
| AND people who are not women.
|
| So yes, it's inclusive because it's including women and
| not women, rather than only women.
| dmix wrote:
| Rare exceptions to the rule doesn't make rules useless.
| jasmer wrote:
| The example you've provided actually does not support you
| argument, just the opposite.
|
| People 'typically' have two arms?
|
| Well they 'typically' also have two legs, a sense of
| smell, sight, hearing, a heart, two lungs, the ability to
| speak.
|
| What exactly can we expect all 'humans' to have? And how
| can we refer to them without making any assumptions
| whatsoever about their state of being so as to be
| 'inclusive' as you say?
|
| It's a Monty Python sketch of absurdity and will end up
| with people slapping others in the face with fish.
|
| Aside from probably using 'they' or 'them' in some cases
| in which we didn't tend to before, language as we use it
| is perfectly fine in almost all cases. It never will
| perfectly encompass everyone and that's fine, it doesn't
| have to.
| foldr wrote:
| >What exactly can we expect all 'humans' to have? And how
| can we refer to them without making any assumptions
| whatsoever about their state of being so as to be
| 'inclusive' as you say?
|
| This question answers itself, no? You can refer to them
| as 'humans'.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| What's the third gender?
|
| What's it called? What's an example of a person of that
| gender?
|
| What gametes do they have? What chromosomes?
| fleddr wrote:
| You will never get an answer. Biological sex, gender,
| gender identity, gender expression and even gender roles
| are thrown into a pile to play 5D chess.
|
| Fact remains, there is no third sex. Intersex is not a
| third sex and sexual anomalies also do not introduce a
| third sex.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Depends on your culture. The Dine people have four
| genders (feminine man, masculine man, feminine woman,
| masculine woman), hijra and fa'afafine are feminine male
| genders, in Inuit culture a sipiniq is someone who
| fulfills a man's role with female genitalia.
|
| In mesopotamia, mesoamerica, and the Indus valley there
| were people of unclear sex who fulfilled genders beyond
| men and women.
|
| A neologism from pan indigenous culture is Two Spirit.
|
| These concepts have existed for a loooong time, however
| they were quite rare in western countries. As westerners,
| we're being exposed to them now, but they are hardly
| novel on the world stage.
| gedy wrote:
| We call people "black" and "white", when there is
| statistically almost an even spectrum between skin colors,
| genes, etc. Your examples in between are really statistical
| outliers, numbers-wise.
| socialismisok wrote:
| They are people. Even in small numbers, they are important.
|
| Hell, nearly every atom in the universe is hydrogen and
| helium, does that make carbon, oxygen, iron, etc
| statistical outliers we shouldn't account for? Of course
| not. Our science and language accounts for even marginal
| percentages, why would it be any different when talking
| about people?
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| By your logic, since oxygen exists, that means helium can
| identify as hydrogen.
| detaro wrote:
| > _We call people "black" and "white",_
|
| And probably do quite a big amount of damage to the
| spectrum inbetween by doing so. Seems like an excellent
| argument to not just focus on the binary.
| knaekhoved wrote:
| Intersex people are tired of transsexuals using them as a
| political tool.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Ha, I bet a fair number of transsexuals are tired of
| transsexuals using them as a political tool.
| eddic wrote:
| Are you intersex? if not, aren't you doing the same thing?
| ergonaught wrote:
| That won't be resolved until "we" stop overloading words with
| incompatible meanings.
|
| If we are separating gender and sex, then gender references
| need to stop using words referring to sex, because the vast and
| overwhelming majority of English speakers understand words like
| man/woman in sexual terms.
|
| But oh well.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Language changes, and plenty of words have multiple meanings.
| I usually don't have any problem understanding what people
| mean from context.
| wnoise wrote:
| I certainly think it is worth distinguishing sex and gender,
| and that using different words is the necessary first step.
| However I think that by-and-large people use "man" and
| "woman" to describe gender -- though not gender identity, but
| filling the role in society successfully. No one checks
| genitals, chromosomes, or gametes. They look and eyeball it,
| based somewhat on anatomical clues, but also a gestalt of
| dress, hairstyles, mannerisms, etc.
|
| Typically I hear "male" and "female" used to describe sex,
| though it would be somewhat awkward to use them as nouns
| rather than adjectives.
| roenxi wrote:
| > No one checks genitals...
|
| If someone advertises as, say, "a man seeking a woman" in
| the local paper I think they probably _are_ going to
| checking genitals. A very key reason why we have genders is
| specifically to advertise what genitals someone has,
| because that is need-to-know information for pregnancy and
| then building up a family.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Not everyone cares.
|
| and there are plenty of ways to build a family outside of
| cis-het sex.
|
| and who hides such an important part of their identity
| from their partner? This isn't som Nip/Tuck tv drama
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This brings up another good point. While someone
| absolutely 100% has the right to identify as whichever
| gender feels right to them, it is also 100% unacceptable
| to hide that when you are dating.
|
| That is a good argument for not trying so hard to
| overload the same terms.
| foldr wrote:
| >it is also 100% unacceptable to hide that when you are
| dating.
|
| If you need to know about someone's genitals, you can
| just ask them before you meet them. No-one is hiding
| information about their genitals by identifying as a
| particular gender. Don't make unwarranted assumptions and
| you won't have any problem. (That said, the false
| conception that trans people are tricksters lying in wait
| to ambush you with their unexpected genitals is a pretty
| big component of trans panic transphobia.)
|
| If, as GP suggests, the underlying reason behind all this
| is pregnancy and families, then there are questions you
| have to ask anyway. Not every cis man or woman is fertile
| or wishes to have children.
| [deleted]
| eganist wrote:
| That distinction is already there. As I understand it,
| there's a differentiation between "male" and "female"
| biological sex v. "man" and "woman" gender identities. Hence
| terms like AMAB/AFAB (assigned male/female at birth).
|
| I'm not at all as well versed on it as I should be and I'm
| working to understand it better as time goes on, but the
| distinction was made using existing language to avoid
| overloading, and later generations already understand the
| distinction pretty intuitively.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| These "assigned" terms don't really work IMO. It imples
| some choice has been made, by someone. Who is doing the
| assigning? And it happens before birth, if we want to be
| accurate.
|
| "Conceived male" or "Conceived female" (leaving out the
| case of genetic abnormalities) seems better to me.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| assignment does not always happen before birth.
|
| There are lots of kids born with ambiguous & differing
| genitals where parents & doctors make an assignment for
| that kid outside the womb.
|
| also ignores a lot of different chromosomal and hormonal
| differences outside the norm.
| dahdum wrote:
| > It imples some choice has been made, by someone. Who is
| doing the assigning? And it happens before birth, if we
| want to be accurate.
|
| It's on the birth certificate, so it is assigned. There
| are some efforts to remove it, so perhaps that will
| change.
| homonculus1 wrote:
| "Male" and "man" are an adjective and a noun referring to
| the same thing.
| socialismisok wrote:
| That's certainly one opinion. A common use of language
| these days separates the concept of manliness from the
| concept of maleness.
|
| Bill Gates is, for example, not particularly manly, but
| he's absolutely male.
|
| I find it useful to separate the concepts, and others do
| too. You might not find that useful, but you should be
| aware language is evolving towards those definitions
| recently.
| homonculus1 wrote:
| socialismisok wrote:
| I'm sorry, but I don't see how you can be so prescriptive
| about language.
|
| People use the words in the manner I describe. People use
| the words in the manner you describe. Both usages exist
| and are common, albeit in different areas.
|
| I'm not denying people use the language in the manner you
| describe, I'm saying people _additionally_ use it in the
| manner I describe. And since language is descriptive, not
| proscriptive, we need to understand both usages exist and
| be able to recognize both, even if we disagree with them.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Bill Gates is, for example, not particularly manly, but
| he's absolutely male.
|
| What does manly mean? Because Bill Gates does not seem to
| be missing features that I find typical of males in the
| US. Otherwise, I would say pretty much all male office
| workers and many other males are as "manly" as Bill
| Gates", at which point I figure the word loses utility.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Great question.
|
| Compare, say, Brad Pitt to Bill Gates. Or The Rock to
| Peewee Herman. There are differences between how closely
| those people fit the archetypal mold of "manly".
|
| I'm comfortable saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger is
| manlier than I am. He ticks more of the boxes we
| associate with "man", culturally. He's muscular,
| successful, attractive, tough, etc. I've got a bit of a
| spare tire, I'm pretty soft, etc.
|
| He and I both are male, and about the same degree of
| male. We both have penises, etc.
|
| In this way we can use "man" to describe our features
| that are culturally associated (ruggedness, toughness,
| cigars and whiskey, etc.) from the biological features
| (penis, testicles, body hair, etc.)
| jasmer wrote:
| The term 'man' infers gender while 'male' refers to sex,
| and has nothing to do with the term 'manliness' in the
| context you described.
|
| The language is 'evolving' only among a very small subset
| of people on earth who happen to believe they are the
| 'social vanguard', that doesn't make them so.
|
| The response to the linguistic disassociation between the
| obviously inexorable relationship between gender and sex
| is, I would guess, considerably bigger and I don't think
| this argument is going to be won but the language
| antagonists. I think society is going to accept trans
| people, which is good ... but I suggest we're never
| moving away from classical gender terminology.
|
| The rest of the world is coming online very quickly and
| they want nothing to do with our linguistic wars. They'll
| change their language when they start using 'Latinx' (a
| term invented by 'colonialist progressives') in Mexico
| which is to say, probably never.
|
| And by the way that's perfectly fine. Paradoxically, in
| many other parts of the world trans people are far more
| commonly accepted and have been for some time, lo and
| behold, they use 'men and women' in the common sense,
| without any problem at all.
|
| In Canada, they fight over whether the stop signs should
| say 'STOP' or 'ARRET' (aka English or French) because
| that's how rich and prosperous they are, they can afford
| to inflate ideological inanities to the level of material
| concern.
| knaekhoved wrote:
| Your example contradicts the claim. They say "assigned male
| at birth" rather than "male", because they believe you can
| be a female even if you were assigned male at birth.
| eganist wrote:
| > Your example contradicts the claim. They say "assigned
| male at birth" rather than "male", because they believe
| you can be a female even if you were assigned male at
| birth.
|
| I'm not sure that's a contradiction so much as it's
| trying to weave through people's own synonymizing of the
| two terms where a distinction is being made. I hear your
| point though.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| krastanov wrote:
| alphabettsy wrote:
| I follow a trans man on IG who got pregnant and had a child
| long after transitioning. Interesting journey to follow.
| sp332 wrote:
| We barely even know how many trans people there are because
| there's no funding to study it. Medical information is even
| scarcer.
| smoldesu wrote:
| That's like asking what portion of people voting for gun
| regulation want to own a gun. Maybe they exist, it's their
| right as a free individual to make that choice. Why does it
| matter?
| krastanov wrote:
| Because most literature that teaches a topic usually does not
| expend much effort on a special case that covers 0.1% of
| cases -- it is just too unwieldy to talk that way. Don't get
| me wrong, I am all in favor of people changing their genders
| and I would be beyond happy when medical technology evolves
| enough that even more scifi changes are possible. But when I
| am teaching a student about gravity, I do not start by
| talking about special relativity: I start by talking about
| the most common case of Newtonian gravity and just mention
| "by the way, there are some special cases when speeds become
| inhumanly great, we will discuss this next semester".
| smoldesu wrote:
| Well, trans people aren't the only ones benefiting from
| more generalized pregnancy curriculum. Intersex folks and
| even supportive men now have clearer literature to work
| from.
|
| In your gravity example, I think it's more akin to teaching
| the theory of relativity on day 1 and wondering why half
| your students are lost. People need a basis of
| understanding for learning anything (especially complicated
| stuff), so that's why you teach people all of Newton's laws
| first, even if it's redundant to most of the class.
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| > Intersex folks [...] now have clearer literature to
| work from.
|
| Whoa! The gender spectrum is absolutely unrelated to sex.
| Intersex _people_ already had clear literature.
|
| A person with one disorder of male sexuality as _just_ as
| male as a person with a different disorder or even none
| at all. Sex is binary even if we have a hard time seeing
| it or measuring it sometimes, or even if the answer is
| different in two places (Chimerism) etc.
|
| Intersex has been colonized by stuffing it into "the
| alphabet", largely as we see here in the service of
| transgender ideology, and this is vastly unfair to the
| people with DSDs - as stigma and ignorance are often
| their greatest enemies.
|
| This is why LGB Alliance is trying to separate
| homosexuality and sex-based rights issues from gender and
| identity rights issues.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > Sex is binary even if we have a hard time seeing it or
| measuring it sometimes, or even if the answer is
| different in two places (Chimerism) etc.
|
| Aren't intersex people the canonical example that sex is
| not binary? If it were, there would be no intersex
| people. I agree that we shouldn't conflate intersex with
| transgender as they're entirely different things. But it
| seems to me that neither is binary.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| That's like saying canonically people don't have two
| eyes. Some are born with one less or more.
|
| It's an edge case.
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
| [deleted]
| scatters wrote:
| Lots of people want to reproduce and become parents. Being
| trans doesn't prevent that.
| krastanov wrote:
| Of course, but that is not what I asked. How many people that
| are born female but have both physiological and social need
| to be male desire to reproduce in a typically female manner?
| That is what I am surprised by. I am sure that it exists, but
| it would be informative to know how often it happens. And no,
| I am not suggesting that these people should step forward and
| speak for the whole group: they should be respected and
| recognized either way.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| No doubt some would be grossed out by the idea. Others
| might be fine with it. Assuming they haven't had bottom
| surgery, stopping hrt might be all that's needed.
| eganist wrote:
| > How many people that are born female but have both
| physiological and social need to be male desire to
| reproduce in a typically female manner?
|
| I understand the prompt, but I'll challenge it with the
| following:
|
| Until functioning testes can be synthesized (complete with
| a chromosome swap, one X for one Y), what means of
| biological reproduction would they have? We'll defer the
| distinction between performing this operation rather than
| keeping the existing set for another day, but for now this
| question is hypothetical only, so dwelling on it yields
| nothing.
|
| With that in mind, I'd say the question is better posed as:
| "How many people that are born female but have both
| physiological and social need to be male desire to
| reproduce[...]?"
|
| and I'd guess the answer to this would be "a lot."
| lostlogin wrote:
| I don't think that answers the question being asked. I think
| OP means the actual pregnancy bit.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Transitioning does prevents reproduction or makes it harder.
| Those are pretty invasive procedures.
| [deleted]
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The answer is that there's unlimited answers. The current
| fashion in some circles is that your current expression of
| gender is whatever you feel it to be, that that may be any
| number of things.
| tommica wrote:
| This is a really good question, it would be good to hear trans
| men's perspective on this, and some statistics about the topic
| WalterBright wrote:
| Words shift meaning all the time. The term "Yankee" was used by
| the British to insult Americans, and the Americans responded by
| making "Yankee Doodle Dandy" the first anthem of the United
| States.
|
| The origin of the word is controversial, but I note its
| similarity to the British word "wanker" and suspect the two words
| are the same.
|
| Anyhow, this anecdote is a classic example of how to reverse an
| insult.
| joemazerino wrote:
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| bacchusracine wrote:
| socialismisok wrote:
| jdrek1 wrote:
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| A good time to learn something new!
|
| Gender is a pure social construct (e.g. man, woman) and
| sex is more biologically derived social construct (e.g.
| male is xy, female is xx). But this doesn't cover all of
| the known sex chromosome phenotypes, hence there's still
| a strong social component here too.
| Vecr wrote:
| I think that depends on your view of sex and what's more
| important about it. If you view reproduction as the most
| important (or foundational I suppose, I'm not a
| philosopher I don't know what this stuff means) aspect of
| what sex is, there would be two sexes, male and female.
| If you want an exact representation of all theoretically
| possible combinations of phenotype and genotype,
| including everything from surgery to accidents/birth
| defects and environmental conditions to intentional
| genetic modification, you are going to have to create a
| pretty sophisticated "sex" theory (in the scientific
| sense), but that's not what most people mean.
| krastanov wrote:
| Honest question here: are there trans men that want to get
| pregnant? What fraction of trans men want to get pregnant?
| I get this is tangential to the discussion and I get I am
| betraying my ignorance, but it is not particularly easy to
| find information on this question and it seems somewhat
| pertinent to the practicalities of this issue.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| reddog wrote:
| smoldesu wrote:
| George Orwell was truly known for his harsh opposition of
| individual rights and self-recognition.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| You can self-recognize as a donkey if you wish but that
| doesn't mean I, too, have to consider and call you a
| donkey.
| smoldesu wrote:
| That's fine, loathe am I to stop you from embarrassing
| yourself in front of others.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Paul Graham told us to keep our identity as small as possible.
| [deleted]
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Being upset about changing language is a story as old as
| humanity, probably. This feels a lot like "old man yelling at
| clouds".
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| whateveracct wrote:
| people who can get pregnant
|
| people who menstruate
|
| people with uteruses
|
| these people all have commonality, but they have been stripped of
| a unifying word for themselves
| wolfendin wrote:
| Using those first two definitions excludes any woman who's gone
| through menopause, which is about two billion people
| joe_the_user wrote:
| "Stripped"? Really?
|
| Because typical bureaucratic literature has added one more
| abstraction?
|
| Health literature and other bureaucratic literature is chock
| full of abstraction and euphemisms. The entire edifice is
| aesthetically unpleasant and euphemisms broadly are sometimes
| used to let bureaucrats get away with terrible thing (see
| George Orwell talking of "population relocation" in Politics
| and The English Language). But I don't see the euphemisms
| targeted here doing any real damage. I mean "not saying things
| I think should be said" only qualifies as harm if you abuse
| language far more than these changes do.
| nicoburns wrote:
| It's the inconsistency that gets me. If we have to say
| "people who menstruate" and "people with uteruses" for
| physical sex characteristics because "women" isn't precise
| enough, then shouldn't we also say "people who feel like
| women", "people who conform to feminine social norms" etc
| rather than "women" for the social aspects of gender. They
| aren't binary either, so "women" is no more accurate.
| vharuck wrote:
| Natal female
| forty wrote:
| XX-individual ?
| detaro wrote:
| Plenty cis women are not in the group of people with all these
| characteristics (and while there attempts to deny them
| womanhood on that basis, those are also generally considered a
| very bad thing to do)
| codefreeordie wrote:
| And how do you know that these women identify as "cis"?
|
| Just because you want to assign the word "cis" to some women
| doesn't mean that they identify that way
| nicoburns wrote:
| It's true that binary concepts of gender are gross
| oversimplifications. But that's just as true of binary gender
| defined by identity as it is of binary gender defined by sex.
| My take it that we ought to be ought be consistent and allow
| either both or neither.
| wang_li wrote:
| labrador wrote:
| I think it's interesting that Lewis Carroll described this battle
| over language many years ago 'When I use a
| word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means
| just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
| 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean
| so many different things.' 'The question is,' said
| Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master -- that's all."
| balderdash wrote:
| Being accommodative of small minorities seems to be a kind, and
| thoughtful thing to do.
|
| However having large majorities(95%+ of the population) make
| concessions in order to accommodate a small group imposes a cost
| (however small) born by many to the benefit of a few. My
| questions is how do you decide where to make that trade off?
| What's the cost benefit analysis? At some point where do people
| say the cost of accommodating this 1/100k/1m people by another
| 300m+ people is not a worthwhile use of societal resources?
| Mandatum wrote:
| Consider that the next time you see a wheelchair ramp.
| yunohn wrote:
| People with physical disabilities are a massive % of the
| population, and could potentially include any person at some
| point of their lives.
|
| Being a trans birth giver is infinitesimally less common.
| Latty wrote:
| Whenever people make this big deal about undermining the
| meaning of biology by using gender identity as the center of
| everyday language, all I can think is it's literally no
| different to adoption, which we all accept.
|
| An adoptive parent is a parent. We don't specify "adoptive" all
| the time, and it'd be rude to refuse to refer to adoptive
| parents as parents because they aren't biologically related to
| their children in the same way.
|
| We have done _exactly_ this kind of language change in schools
| over that issue too, teachers often prefer "guardians" to
| "parents" in some contexts these days because some children
| won't live with parents, things like that. To pretend this
| hurts people is just counter to these examples we see in
| reality, it's just trying to use the words that apply to
| everyone, not just the most common case. The cost is so small,
| the attempts to push back on it seem actively spiteful, because
| there is no reason to contest it generally. The thing it brings
| to mind is the "but marriage means a man and a woman" argument
| from the attempts to stop marriage equality.
| concordDance wrote:
| The costs are small but so are the benefits.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| Agreed but scale has to be a factor. Millions of American
| children are in the custody of grandparents or the foster
| system at any given time.
|
| Secondly, there is way more friction here than with a term
| like guardian, which represents a situation that is universal
| thoughtout humanity, and always has been. The common language
| only changed because of the need for accuracy and
| inclusiveness in things like school handbooks, not because it
| wasn't fully understood and accepted by the population as
| being an inevitable element of human populations for anywhere
| from 1 in 10 to 1 in 100 children.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Using language that includes a group isn't a _cost_ that is
| born by those not in the group. Notably, many people not in the
| group may OK or even encouraging of the changes.
|
| I'm not terribly pleased by extremely vague bureaucratic
| language. But the arguments that try to turn such into an
| actual harm or cost to those not in the group being protected
| here are engaging in language that's far more deceptively
| vague.
| kurtreed wrote:
| > Using language that includes a group isn't a cost that is
| born by those not in the group.
|
| Often it is. Simply changing from familiar terms to
| artificial terms is a cost.
| nullc wrote:
| Sometimes there are ways to be inclusive without undertaking a
| cost... E.g. talk about "health issues that arise during
| pregnancy".
|
| But those zero or low cost mechanisms don't achieve the
| _advocacy_ goals that some are chasing. For advocacy purposes
| it needs to be visible, not silently accommodating.
|
| And then you end up with the crude, objectifying and
| biologically reductive alternatives to "women" like calling
| them "menstruators" or "breeders".
|
| One doesn't need to abandon politely accommodating to reject
| being made a tool of someone's disruptive advocacy.
| JBits wrote:
| The issue is that the costs of accomodating trans people are
| greatly exaggerated to push for discimination. This article is
| focused on language which is obviously of great importance to
| everyone involved. I support the writer's hurt feeling but you
| can't justify not accomodating people because it requires
| looking at words differently.
| ouid wrote:
| In what way is this language accomodating trans people?
|
| English has a right to a word that means, "those who can get
| pregnant". Moreover, that word is women. You seem to want a
| new word that means, "i want people to treat me the way
| society treats women/men". This is not a problem with the
| language, you might argue that its a problem with society,
| but consider exactly what it is that you're asking for.
|
| Do you really have a right to be treated differently from
| other people? Its pretty easy to argue that men and women
| should be treated more equitably, but theres also a fair
| amount of structure in place to treat men and women
| differently to further that aim. Do you really think you have
| a right to opt into the perceived benefits of this attempt?
|
| It sounds like you really value the social divisions between
| men and women.
| LightHugger wrote:
| If you can just look at words differently... then the people
| being "accommodated" can just do exactly the same thing, in
| this case, and there is no reason to waste time energy or
| resources doing any of this.
| dmix wrote:
| It's worth asking whether anyone is actually being excluded
| merely because the words aren't generic enough.
|
| We can accept that a very small portion of the population
| doesn't fit into the definitions we commonly use without
| having to abandon them. It's obvious with good intentions but
| it seems like a silly hill to die on.
|
| Why can't we just accept as a community that when you say
| male/female there will always be a little [*] attached to it
| for the exceptions?
| [deleted]
| socialismisok wrote:
| I am deeply uncomfortable in gendered spaces. Many places
| offer gender neutral spaces (eg restrooms that are all
| genders).
|
| I don't require everyone to make me comfortable, but I do
| positively notice when someone does. If I go to my office
| and there are men's rooms, women's rooms, and all gender
| rooms, I do feel much less excluded.
|
| Not everyone is like me, but thousands or millions are. I
| do feel excluded by gendered language, and it does impact
| my ability to get work done, navigate social situations,
| etc.
| thethirdone wrote:
| I think society at large can and should be much more
| inclusive to people who don't fall cleanly into man and
| woman, but in the specific case of pregnancy, it seems
| trying remove all references to gender is challenging.
| nadieyninguno1 wrote:
| > I am deeply uncomfortable in gendered spaces.
|
| I'm not trans or any of that sort - I'm generally
| uncomfortable around people. What I don't understand is,
| why impose upon others? To me, that's my cross to bear.
| Latty wrote:
| When it comes to medicine, people not realising something
| applies to them can have negative health outcomes. Trying
| to produce the language that ensures everyone can
| understand if something applies to them is valuable.
|
| To be clear: I don't think that _just_ means using
| inclusive language, you may need to specify more to help
| people understand that language if it isn 't in common use,
| or whatever. I don't think there is a simple one-size-fits-
| all solution, but I think just assuming gendered language
| is good enough is clearly sub-optimal, and best terms that
| clarify the specific group in question are the best
| starting point.
| adastra22 wrote:
| But the gender-inclusive language is not clear. It was
| downright confusing to be honest. If I were pregnant, anxious
| and trying to find info online, I wouldn't want to wade
| through that either. The purpose of language is to
| communicate clearly, not to make you feel included.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >The purpose of language is to communicate clearly, not to
| make you feel included.
|
| My brother was mentally ill his whole life; she is trans
| now. I showed her this comment and we both agreed.
|
| It's a good way to put it. We can try and do both, but
| clearly has to come before feelings.
| concordDance wrote:
| Note that the benefits of using the new language and terms
| are also greatly exaggerated. Only the most fragile of people
| are going to commit suicide because of talk of "women" in
| pregnancy resources. And frankly with that level of fragility
| they probably weren't long for this world anyway.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| _I support the writer 's hurt feeling but you can't justify
| not accomodating people because it requires looking at words
| differently._
|
| You can. This is feelings all the way down. Specifically
| whose feelings are going to be accommodated.
| robot_no_421 wrote:
| This seems to be a big hullabaloo about nothing. Language is a
| tool for communicating meaning; as long as the other person is
| understanding what you're saying then it's not that big a deal
| how the message was delivered. People get so offended over
| nothing. If some people don't want to use the words "mother" and
| "brestfeeding", so be it. I personally still use those terms
| because they feel right to me, and I don't plan on changing. But
| it doesn't bother me that other people are making the change.
|
| If we just learned to communicate with each other and understand
| intent instead of getting so micro-aggrieved over how language is
| semantically used, we'd all be better off.
| Latty wrote:
| Indeed, literally no one is saying people can't use these words
| if they identify with them either, it's just about using the
| most inclusive terms in the general sense by professionals
| trying to communicate with broad groups that will include edge
| cases.
|
| This isn't even a "gender" issue, saying something like "people
| with a uterus" when it is the most accurate term helps cis
| women who have had hysterectomies know it isn't relevant to
| them. Of course, we should always inspect the impact of words:
| (e.g: maybe some people won't know their biology to know if
| they have a uterus, so we should clarify for them if that's a
| potential case), but the goal of being accurate rather than
| just making assumptions based on gender is obviously reasonable
| and beneficial as a base idea.
| LeroyRaz wrote:
| "to protect transgender men and women, a class of people who are
| supposedly more "oppressed" than biological women. Even if this
| were true (and I'm deeply skeptical)"
|
| I thought trans people being oppressed was clear statistically
| and unambiguous. I am surprised at her skepticism. Are the
| statistics not clear? One can quibble over causality, but my
| understanding is that they are a group with massively higher
| rates of suicide and depression, and so a group that would likely
| benefit from support.
| golemiprague wrote:
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| The higher rates of suicide and depression aren't improved
| through enabling. What seems to be the case is that entrenching
| gender dysphoria through social affirmation leads to still
| greater alienation from self and therefore, unsurprisingly,
| similar (or greater) rates of suicide and depression.
| 762236 wrote:
| "at a time in my life when I have never felt more essentially
| female, more debilitated by a physical condition directly
| attributable to my biological sex, more in need of clear,
| informative language describing what I'm going through,
| journalists and medical authorities are hard at work seeking to
| obfuscate the differences between male and female bodies."
| watwut wrote:
| There is zero ambiguity or confusion in the changed language.
| The bio parts are super clear.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I found "chestfeeding" to be pretty confusing. If you put
| me on the spot I'd assume it was a reference to the movie
| Alien before I guessed it referred to milking mammaries.
|
| I can also see how being called a menstrator would feel
| objectifying (kinda like how in some contexts calling
| someone a breeder or a bleeder is derogatory)
| [deleted]
| renewiltord wrote:
| Regardless of everything else, "chestfeeding" is just a hilarious
| term. It brings to mind the middle-stage of a xenomorph.
| civilized wrote:
| > After lugging around two fetuses that won't stop kicking my
| bladder, I have no patience left for gender activists who pretend
| that men can give birth.
|
| Why does this woman's personal experience of pregnancy make her
| so offended by how other people who can give birth think of their
| gender?
|
| I do agree with the author that the existence of trans people
| shouldn't mean we can't use the word breastfeeding anymore. But I
| don't think that's the fault of people who want to say that men
| can give birth.
|
| Here's an idea - why not have resources with different language
| for cis women and trans men? Just like pages come with different
| language versions and you can switch in the nav bar.
|
| This would also be medically helpful, as I'm sure the birthing
| experience is not identical for the two populations.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Right? She's a woman, which awesome... Women are cool. Some
| people who give birth aren't women. Those people are also cool,
| whether they are men, non binary, agender, or whatever else.
|
| Can we not just let people be who they are and recognize gender
| minorities do exist? Acknowledging the existence of trans men
| doesn't reduce the incredible experiences of any woman who
| gives birth (or doesn't!)
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Right? She's a woman, which awesome... Women are cool. Some
| people who give birth aren't women.
|
| I'm lost, could you explain this? Are you referring to birth
| by those who don't identify as female and were themselves
| born biologically female?
| socialismisok wrote:
| Assuming you are asking in good faith:
|
| Yes, I'm referring to several groups of people - trans men
| who were born women, intersex people who may have been
| assigned man or woman, non-binary/queer/agender people who
| were born with a functional uterus.
|
| All three of those groups might not be women. They may
| identify as female, but not women. Or they may not identify
| as female.
|
| Language is evolving and not settled at all, but there's a
| movement to separate the concepts of "man" and "male". For
| example, we can probably agree that Bruce Willis is manlier
| than PeeWee Herman. But they are both male. Manliness, how
| much a "man" someone is, is a huge spectrum and it's
| socially defined. Likewise, how "womanly" someone is is a
| spectrum, and also cultural.
|
| By separating the concepts of man from male, and woman from
| female, we can discuss how womanly or manly someone is, and
| what our societies expect from the roles of women and men.
|
| I find it useful. Others have strong aversions to even
| discussing the concept. I'm happy to answer further
| questions!
| skydhash wrote:
| I was reading a science-fiction book [0], where they
| refer to the biological sex as being a manform or a
| womanform, but the personal articles are the indication
| of the person gender, either man, woman, or neutral. My
| own native language is genderless, so unless you precise
| the sex or other biological attributes, there's no way to
| determine if you're speaking of a male or a female.
|
| [0]: The Machineries of Empire series
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > Manliness, how much a "man" someone is, is a huge
| spectrum and it's socially defined. Likewise, how
| "womanly" someone is is a spectrum, and also cultural.
|
| This doesn't seem to be anything new. Go back 100 years,
| or more, there were manly women and effeminate men.
| n4r9 wrote:
| It's not at all new. Many Native American cultural
| traditions had a sophisticated gender fluidity:
| https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/oct/11/two-spirit-
| peo...
|
| In many ways the gender rigidity of late 20th century
| western society is an exception in human history.
| klipt wrote:
| > For example, we can probably agree that Bruce Willis is
| manlier than PeeWee Herman.
|
| So now we're policing people's gender based on their
| habits? "If you wear pants you're not a REAL woman"?
| lostlogin wrote:
| Thank you.
| slibhb wrote:
| > Some people who give birth aren't women. Those people are
| also cool, whether they are men, non binary, agender, or
| whatever else.
|
| > Can we not just let people be who they are and recognize
| gender minorities do exist? Acknowledging the existence of
| trans men doesn't reduce the incredible experiences of any
| woman who gives birth (or doesn't!)
|
| I understand both sides of this argument, I've thought about
| it a lot, and I've come to a different conclusion than you.
| Being a man or a woman is a brute fact. It has nothing to do
| with identity. Only women give birth.
|
| What bothers me is not our disagreement but that my view has
| been labeled "hateful" or "problematic".
| duped wrote:
| Because you're conflating biological sex and gender. That
| has led to ignorance of the latter and a lot of hate, which
| is why people will argue with you over it.
| slibhb wrote:
| I'm not conflating anything. I'm asserting that being a
| man or a woman is a question of biological sex not a
| question of gender.
|
| You're allowed to disagree but you've already asserted
| that my view is hateful and ignorant which was my
| original complaint.
| socialismisok wrote:
| I believe your view is not keeping up with the times.
|
| I think as long as you acknowledge there are people who
| use language to disambiguate sex and gender, but you
| choose not to use that language, then you are just
| expressing your opinion.
|
| I think it's fair for folks to probe _why_ you choose the
| language you do, and even to suggest that the reasons you
| supply might be considered ignorant.
|
| We only improve if we all try to understand the reasoning
| behind each other more.
| chongli wrote:
| _use language to disambiguate_
|
| That's the ultimate issue here. Different groups of
| people want to disambiguate some terms and conflate
| others, and there is not enough overlap between these
| groups to reach a common ground. At its core is a
| struggle for power with the meanings of words
| representing territory to be won or lost.
|
| Orwell wrote extensively on this topic and left us with
| some pretty stern warnings which we as a society continue
| to ignore. And while everyone fights over this stuff we
| are ruining the planet and risking catastrophic
| consequences both environmental and political.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| There's this strange perception that anything new must be
| good and right. Perhaps OPs language isn't keeping up
| with the times, or maybe the times are just...incorrect.
| socialismisok wrote:
| I didn't suggest that new was correct, I suggested new
| exists and we should acknowledge it.
|
| I don't use "yeet" as a word, and I find it silly. But
| nonetheless I'm aware some people do use it, and so it's
| in my lexicon as a word that I just don't care for.
|
| My point is that we cannot deny new usages. We can
| disagree with them or choose not to use them, but denying
| them is just never going to work.
| dahdum wrote:
| You're arguing definitions, but ultimately language is
| use, and use is always changing.
|
| You can carry on as you've always had, but some fraction
| of the public will assume ignorance, some stubbornness,
| and some malice. It's not really any different than terms
| for ethnic minorities or those with disabilities over
| time. How you approach it is up to you, but how people
| perceive you is up to them.
| slibhb wrote:
| It's not quite as simple as arguing definitions. My
| argument is that the categories "man" and "woman" really
| exist, independent of language, and that they don't have
| anything to do with identity.
|
| Some people (you, apparently) agree with that and just
| want to shift the definitions so "man" means "someone who
| identifies as a man" and will be replaced by "biological
| man". But other people don't agree, they don't believe
| that "man" and "woman" are immanent categories that exist
| outside language and culture.
|
| As far as language changing, it certainly does, but it
| rarely changes by fiat. I don't believe changes
| referenced in this article represent organic change, I
| think they're a fad that will only catch on in a few
| enclaves. We'll see.
| red_trumpet wrote:
| > and that they don't have anything to do with identity.
|
| That's absurd. It divides humans into two groups, and
| everytime you divide humans into groups they make this
| about their identity.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Either language expresses reality, or it becomes
| something else. Yes, meanings of utterances can change in
| the sense that in the sign "woman", the signifier can
| remain fixed while the signified changes. So what? That's
| banal. The gender position is not a mere question of
| signifier/signified correspondence shifting.
|
| And that language changes doesn't mean all changes are
| equally good. When language loses its grip on reality,
| we've lost. We've become Orwellian.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| I would posit that OP isn't conflating biological sex and
| gender, but rather the trend nowadays is to reuse words
| that have had static meanings for centuries, and then get
| unreasonably upset at folks who don't immediately agree
| with the new definitions.
| socialismisok wrote:
| I would say I strongly believe in the new definitions,
| have I been unreasonably upset in my responses?
|
| I think I've articulated my position and held it firmly,
| but at no point did I feel upset about people who
| disagreed.
|
| I don't believe I called anyone a bigot or was any more
| rigid in my language than folks who hold a more
| traditional meaning of the word in their minds.
| nicoburns wrote:
| My view is similar to yours, but I think slightly more
| neutral:
|
| It seems to me that the words in question ("man",
| "woman", etc), were used to refer to _both_ biological
| sex and gender for centuries under the assumption that
| they always co-occurred. The conflict has arisen now that
| we 've realised they don't always co-occur because
| different people have taken different views on which of
| part was primary or definitional. Neither view is
| inherently wrong. But taken together they're hugely
| problematic because we're using the same words to mean
| different things, which is leading to lots of confusion.
|
| (there is additional conflict as some people have decided
| that we ought to not talk about one or other of
| biological sex and gender at all - _which_ one depends on
| who you ask of course)
|
| Ultimately the solution will need to be a second (and
| perhaps a third) set of words that are clear in their
| meanings. I don't think it really matters too much which
| word means what, so long as we all agree on the meanings.
| Possibly it would be better to ditch "man" and "woman"
| entirely so nobody feels hard done by that other people
| can use them but they can't.
| red_trumpet wrote:
| > What bothers me is not our disagreement but that my view
| has been labeled "hateful" or "problematic".
|
| There are people that feel inherently disconnected from
| their biological sex, and with the social construct of
| gender associated to this. Some of them suffer. A lot. So
| they might want to change their gender. As a society, we
| have the option to support them, which might be a bit
| inconvenient. Learning a new name for a person takes time
| and training. Questioning internalized gender roles can be
| unsettling. But ultimately, I think it is worth it, if we
| can help trans persons suffer less. Also personally it was
| definitely freeing.
|
| So yes, if you deny trans persons this basic support, it
| makes you look like a prick who chooses his own convenience
| over their suffering.
|
| Also I don't know if this applies to you, but hate against
| trans persons definitely exists.
| concordDance wrote:
| I very much disagree but think this is an opinion worthy
| of discussion, so have upvoted to counter the downvotes.
| slibhb wrote:
| I don't believe changing how we talk will help trans
| people suffer less. But even if it did, I think it's a
| bad idea to constantly modulate our use of language based
| on the small probability of offending a small part of the
| population. And I believe that if you take that view to
| its end, you'll arrive at a tortured, humorless, jargon-
| filled newspeak.
| red_trumpet wrote:
| > I don't believe changing how we talk will help trans
| people suffer less.
|
| Why don't you believe trans people when they ask you to
| do this? Apparently you think that you know better than
| trans people themselves, what will make them suffer. Just
| for the record (because you asked above): This is exactly
| what I consider problematic.
| misnome wrote:
| > Only women give birth
|
| Right, so, by your definition, most women over 50, and
| women incapable of having a child, are actually men?
|
| Or just perhaps there is a more complicated nuance here...
| slibhb wrote:
| Saying "only women give birth" is not the same as saying
| "if you can't give birth you aren't a woman".
| civilized wrote:
| Personally I think you can believe whatever you want, it's
| just that if you call people something they don't want to
| be called, they could have a problem with you. And if
| you're in an organization where the leaders want everyone
| to get along (most orgs) it shouldn't be surprising if they
| see you as the cause of the disharmony.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Why design a society after the minority?
| detaro wrote:
| How acknowledging a minority also exists "designing society
| after a minority"?
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Because changing the sites/books/medical language that
| EVERYONE uses is exactly that.
|
| I can "acknowledge" something, but I don't have to change
| anything.
| lostlogin wrote:
| What size minority counts?
|
| Medicine has done a great job excluding groups as a large
| as 'women' historically. Still does in many areas.
| detaro wrote:
| "designing after" would to me suggest solely focussing
| on, not also including. The same way that we didn't
| "design society after women" when they got voting rights.
| toqy wrote:
| p0pcult wrote:
| It is quite a stretch to refer to _using the word "woman"
| to describe someone who is pregnant_ as treating trans
| males like shit.
| stephencanon wrote:
| Acknowledging that a minority exists is not "designing
| society" after them. It's accepting reality.
| knaekhoved wrote:
| civilized wrote:
| Why split society into a zero-sum war of factions by
| declaring that society should be organized around the
| majority, rather than attempting to accommodate as many
| people as possible?
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| > Why split society [...] factions
|
| Biology did that. Society is recognizing it, and only
| recently at that, by giving women sex-based rights.
|
| > by declaring that society should be organized around
| the majority, rather than attempting to accommodate as
| many people as possible?
|
| The _needs_ of X vs the _needs_ of Y.
|
| Females need single-sex spaces to avoid violence and
| rape. Males do not need to be in female single-sex
| spaces. Needs trump wants.
|
| > zero-sum war of
|
| Many things are zero sum. A single-sex space is only
| useful if it remains single-sex. A single male rapist can
| traumatize and attack an entire rape shelter of female
| victims.
|
| Women's rights don't matter if "woman" means whatever
| anyone else wants.
| chowells wrote:
| We're not talking about biology, we're talking about
| gender.
| [deleted]
| civilized wrote:
| I think concerns about single-sex spaces are very
| understandable. It's a sensitive topic and should be
| handled as such. But with the language on a pregnancy
| website I think we could accommodate everyone. In the
| root comment I suggested different materials for cis
| women and trans men.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Are societies designed? And if so why not add some
| protections for minorities? They tend to be oppressed and
| ignored by majorities
| flowerbreeze wrote:
| Why bother with quantum physics if classical physics works
| for most things we need?
| bequanna wrote:
| An interesting argument. Quantum physics does a better
| job of explaining the universe, that's why we use it.
|
| Changing common language for the sole purpose of being an
| "ally" to some ultra small minority only serves to
| confuse. Quite a dumb thing to do when the best possible
| effect is sparing a few hurt feelings.
|
| 99% of the people who support this nonsense aren't in the
| affected group and are simply trying to earn "cool
| points" via virtue signaling.
| eganist wrote:
| > Why design a society after the minority?
|
| We always have an obligation to design society to
| accommodate everyone, not just the majority. Otherwise,
| with your line of reasoning, you might as well repeal the
| ADA, do away with ethical AI considerations to enable equal
| processing of richer skin tones, etc.
| SamPatt wrote:
| Society isn't designed. It emerges spontaneously over
| time due to the beliefs and behaviors of everyone, and
| it's literally impossible to "design society to
| accommodate everyone."
|
| I'm 6'3" and I wish plane seats were designed with me in
| mind, but they aren't. My short wife wishes countertops
| were usually built higher, but they aren't.
|
| I think children are treated very poorly in our society
| and I've homeschooled my children to allow them to exert
| more agency over their lives. I'm fortunate to live in
| the US where this is legal, but in most of the world it
| isn't. Other cultures believe that they should dictate
| that children's time be spent according to adults'
| wishes. How can both be accommodated?
| WalterBright wrote:
| One of the great accomplishments of industrialization is
| that shoes became mass produced cheaply, rather than
| expensive one-offs handmade by a cobbler. The downside,
| of course, is that mass produced shoes come in standard
| sizes, and too bad for you if your feet don't work in
| them (mine don't).
| socialismisok wrote:
| It's designing after the whole, not the minority.
|
| If we can make a simple change to include everyone, not
| just a subset, why wouldn't we do that?
| nicoburns wrote:
| I agree that this is the goal. And a worthy one. However,
| I think a lot of the controversy around self-identity
| centric models of gender is that they don't achieve that
| goal. They don't allow people to talk about the physical
| aspects of sex, which is something that lots people want
| to do. And they redefine gender in such a way that many
| people will feel like they no longer self-identify as the
| gender they identified as their entire lives.
| joemazerino wrote:
| [deleted]
| briffid wrote:
| The definition of woman is the "adult female human", and a
| someone who gives birth is by definition female. That's the
| female sex of mammals and other animals, including human. The
| other sex is male (who provides the sperm for procreating
| offspring). No third or fourth sex exists. BUT there are
| people who cannot be clearly assigned to either, but that
| doesn't change the definition. And unfortunately it doesn't
| go by personal choice. Life sucks, we must accept our
| biology.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Definitions change.
|
| Language isn't static.
|
| Science isn't static.
|
| Woman (and man) as terms are evolving in their use to mean
| "the roles we expect people to fill based on their sex".
|
| You might disagree with this evolution of the language, by
| all means, I am not the arbiter of how language should
| change.
|
| But I do believe saying a word has a fixed, unchanging
| definition (and adding that your definition is the only
| correct one) is not a useful position to hold. I believe
| that even if you disagree with the use, you should
| acknowledge that a significant number of people have
| different definitions from you.
| throwawaywu wrote:
| Definitions change indeed. We also have the right to push
| back on changing them.
|
| I come from a culture that is thousands of years old, and
| don't wish to change the definition of "Mom" just yet
| without good reason.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Language also needs to be useful.
|
| Having to use translation/dictionary for my native
| language means it failed in a big way.
|
| And all languages are rooted on some level in reality.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I agree that you shouldn't treat word definitions as
| fixed. That being said, I believe that people who have
| been using "woman" to mean "adult female human" their
| entire lives but can no longer do this while having their
| meaning understood have a legitimate grievance.
|
| > Woman (and man) as terms are evolving in their use to
| mean "the roles we expect people to fill based on their
| sex".
|
| It is for example by no means universal that we do expect
| people of a certain sex to fulfil a certain role. And
| many people explicitly reject that definition of gender
| for themselves because they have no intention of
| fulfilling the role. For these people to then be told
| that it is the definitional meaning of their gender
| identity seems... no better than telling trans people
| they aren't the gender they identify as.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| "no third or fourth sex exists"
|
| if people here are using 'biological facts' to make anti-
| trans & anti-queer arguments, then at least get the biology
| correct.
|
| there are TONs of variations in both chromosomal
| combinations, presentation of genitals, outside the norm
| hormone levels
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
|
| i have stopped reading HN frequently because of this crap.
|
| Every month or so when I come back there is another highly
| upvoted thread on gender, queerness, & race.
|
| almost always with a lot of disconcerting and hurtful
| language. or outright attacks.
|
| I shouldn't be surprised anymore that a lot of 'smart' &
| 'educated' people working in tech & sciences use their
| limited understanding to perpetuate prejudice.
|
| I hope it's just a vocal minority.
|
| But the attacks are growing.
|
| I see this as the result of a specific political agenda,
| which is using this to gain power & win votes. At our
| expense. Often cynically passing gross laws they know will
| get thrown out just so they can get on Fox News and pump
| their candidacy for president.
|
| And yes, the damage cause by this rhetoric & laws is very
| real.
| concordDance wrote:
| > Some people who give birth aren't women.
|
| Note that this definition of women is either circular or
| culture specific (depending on which of the two trans
| inclusive definitions you are using).
|
| A biological definition is more useful in most cases.
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| nicoburns wrote:
| I think the best way to understand the sentiment behind this
| is:
|
| - This woman identifies as a woman on the basis of her physical
| body (giving birth being an example of an experience that she
| had in part due to the body she was born with)
|
| - For this woman, that's what being a woman is: when she
| describes herself as a woman then she means someone who has
| breasts, gives birth, etc.
|
| - If other people use "woman" to mean something different and
| more abstract/social, then it makes it difficult for this woman
| to describe herself as a "woman" and have it understood that by
| saying this she is talking about her body.
|
| - It may even be the case, that if "woman" means what other
| people want it to mean then this woman would no longer identify
| as a woman.
|
| In other words, she's offended because her own identity is
| being challenged.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >If other people use "woman" to mean something different and
| more ephemeral
|
| I have not considered it on the context of time/ephemeral. I
| usually think of it as mutable, but your word choice brings
| up a point about stages of life I think is worth considering.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > I have not considered it on the context of time/ephemeral
|
| Hmm... having looked up the definition of ephemeral, I
| don't think I meant ephemeral. I meant based more on the
| social aspects or a feeling of gender
|
| > I usually think of it as mutable
|
| I have increasingly come to think of it multi-dimensional
| (e.g. one can have physical sex, feelings of gender, norm
| conformity, political gender, etc, etc) all existing
| independently of one another. Whether those are mutable
| (and who has the power to mutate them) depends on the
| dimension.
| the-printer wrote:
| > she's offended because her own identity is being challenged
|
| After going through the list that you've given, would she be
| wrong for feeling like that? Or is it just a matter of her
| feelings [1] being rendered incompatible with the
| contemporary milieu?
|
| [1]: Which per your list, sound legitimate irrespective of
| the tone of the article or her writing itself, I'm going to
| use your takeaways as a model for my questions.
| [deleted]
| roenxi wrote:
| She explains in the "possibly be a placental abruption--but
| could also just be a fart" paragraph - her argument is that she
| is having a risky-and-possibly-fatal biological experience and
| thinks that the best health outcome will be reached if
| literature explains the situation in clear, commonly used terms
| that most people understand.
|
| It could just be rationalisation though. I'd expect people to
| be fired and/or called transphobic for making that sort of
| argument.
| watwut wrote:
| So, how is that removed by other person having same biology
| ... but hmalso being trans removing anything from that?
|
| Cause trans men are born with sake exact biology. Same exact
| pregnancy risks and then some additional ones.
|
| And none of these articles of groups are interested in my
| rights and possibilities as a woman. They do however take
| issues with trans men existing and being acknowledged as
| such.
| roenxi wrote:
| > Cause trans men are born with sake exact biology. Same
| exact pregnancy risks and then some additional ones.
|
| Can't trans men have penises though?
| klipt wrote:
| Not at birth. They might have one added later on?
| bequanna wrote:
| > They do however take issues with trans men existing and
| being acknowledged as such.
|
| _sigh_
|
| The arguments like "they are denying trans people exist!"
| and "this is causing violence!" are so over the top and
| tired.
|
| No one is denying trans people exist. We simply think that
| instead of changing the way we use language to fit <1% of
| the population, maybe when a trans person goes to the
| Doctor they can simply say: "I was born a (wo)man"
| peterpost2 wrote:
| rejectfinite wrote:
| eganist wrote:
| > Yes, just namecall :)
|
| hey rejectfinite, it's a representative acronym, not an
| insult.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF
| rejectfinite wrote:
| eganist wrote:
| rejectfinite wrote:
| eganist wrote:
| [deleted]
| crooked-v wrote:
| The words "many" and "plenty" are sure doing a lot of work
| here, what with the complete lack of citations.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| SamPatt wrote:
| >doesn't deserve an audience
|
| Why do you get to make that determination?
|
| I can see the author's perspective. You don't have to agree
| with everything you read for it to "deserve an audience."
| eganist wrote:
| > Why do you get to make that determination?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
|
| I'm not making the determination. It's the only logical
| one to make if we're to live in a society that values
| tolerance as a first class citizen.
|
| Relatedly, there's a distinction between freedom of
| speech v. freedom of reach, the latter of which nobody
| has.
| SamPatt wrote:
| You are making the determination by declaring that this
| article is intolerant.
|
| It's a woman's opinion about how language is changing in
| ways she disagrees with. It isn't her advocating for
| hatred or violence.
| eganist wrote:
| > It isn't her advocating for hatred
|
| Are you sure about this specifically? Her own subtitle
| disagrees: "I have no patience left for gender activists
| who pretend that men can give birth."
|
| I struggle to understand what "no patience left" for
| [population] means other than human intolerance, which
| goes hand in hand with hatred.
| SamPatt wrote:
| If you read that article and came away with the idea that
| you should hate or be violent towards trans people, then
| you are searching for hatred where it doesn't exist.
|
| A woman expressing her opinion that "chest-feeding" and
| "birthing persons" are terms obnoxious to her is not
| hatred.
| snoot wrote:
| lando2319 wrote:
| Someone who was born a woman, but now identifies as something
| else
| snowpid wrote:
| Identity is a bad concept to classify biological bodies.
| eropple wrote:
| Yup. That's why "pregnant person" is used instead as a
| descriptor; it is a condition that a person experiences,
| it does not refer to extraneous factors like gender
| identification.
| captnFwiffo wrote:
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| notadev wrote:
| Does the tech field seem to be highly represented in the T part
| of LGBT? I can't count how many times I've see a woman's name as
| the maintainer of some software and thought, wow it's awesome to
| see a woman working on something as low-level or esoteric or
| whatever and it almost always ends up being a trans woman.
| Absolutely nothing wrong with that, just an observation.
| codefreeordie wrote:
| Yes, this is a thing, and there are very significant structural
| reasons for it.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's more that the tech industry is recovering from centuries
| of raising women to avoid engineering roles.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I share your observations. I often find trans women behind very
| cool and interesting projects. I don't have any statistics or
| anything but it's certainly my personal experience.
| eganist wrote:
| > Does the tech field seem to be highly represented in the T
| part of LGBT? I can't count how many times I've see a woman's
| name as the maintainer of some software and thought, wow it's
| awesome to see a woman working on something as low-level or
| esoteric or whatever and it almost always ends up being a trans
| woman. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, just an observation.
|
| Possibly, or also possibly likely that people are more likely
| to come out when they feel less constrained to societal
| expectations (i.e there may be more LGBTQIA+ who are closeted
| outside of tech because of nonconformity-related fears).
| Whether it's one or the other (or both), these populations have
| always gravitated towards tech because tech was always the
| outcast thing to do.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| That hasn't been my experience, but possibly the over-
| representation of males in the industry means trans people in
| tech are more likely to be trans women.
| detaro wrote:
| Tech has lots of places tolerant of people falling outside the
| "mainstream normal", pays well (which is quite useful for
| people who want to medically transition), and until quite a
| short time ago, niche online communities were probably one of
| the main avenues for people to understand what's going on with
| them and what they can do about it.
| Gigachad wrote:
| You wouldn't notice if the maintainer was in the LGB part.
| TheNorthman wrote:
| That's not his point...?
| golemiprague wrote:
| Tsiklon wrote:
| The field seems to have comparatively visible representation,
| which is something I'm happy to see. An immediate question I
| have is how much of this change is because of society becoming
| thankfully more accepting of transpeople? Further by extension,
| in prior generations of tech workers how many are people who
| would have not felt able to present who they are?
| JBits wrote:
| More boys being encouraged to go into tech is a potential
| reason. However, personally I think the biggest reason is that
| lots of people with ASD are in tech, and there is an overlap
| between ASD and trans. All of the times I can remember where I
| came a across a trans women in programming, they also had ASD
| traits.
| dmix wrote:
| ASD = Autism Spectrum Disorder (for those who didn't know)
| captnFwiffo wrote:
| People used to say this about gay men and women in tech in the
| 1990s, so, ya know. The more things change the more they stay
| the same.
| rajin444 wrote:
| Don't trans females tend to be autistic? Given how well
| autistic individuals do in programming it isn't surprising.
| truthwhisperer wrote:
| forty wrote:
| Your observation (which I noticed too) boils down to the under
| representation of biological women (both cis women and trans
| men) in the tech industry, due to cultural and societal
| reasons.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| I have noticed the higher amount of T in the Tech Industry. I
| also noticed that most of the individuals are MtF, and a large
| percentage are also white.
|
| A conspiracy theorist could weave this into: White men have a
| hard time getting past HR in the industry that is now bending
| over backwards to pull in more BIPOC and women, so they just
| dye their hair, pick some pronouns and land that job.
| davesque wrote:
| I feel that the likelihood of a discussion about this not
| devolving into a flame war is low.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| socialismisok wrote:
| Most folks agree on biological facts, and the science is
| fairly consistent at this point. There remains a group who
| refuses to accept that we've improved our understanding of
| the human condition over the past several decades,
| unfortunately.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I think you're talking about a minority of people. Most
| people don't care about this topic, all they care is to
| atleast allow acknowledging fundamental facts and reality
| without being called a bigot.
|
| Strange that my original comment was flagged. I guess, I
| will be leaving a place that doesn't allow civil discourse.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > I guess, I will be leaving a place that doesn't allow
| civil discourse.
|
| You should buy Hacker News for $44 Billion, then you can
| publish whatever you want!
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Yeah many good folk have left HN, it's become an
| ideological echo-chamber. It used to be so amazing.
|
| I can't imagine us discussing things like in this thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12909752
|
| Take care.
|
| Edit: Re: I chose this example as an extreme point of
| reference for a divisive topic. Not suggesting that we
| should be discussing politics. I am not going to comment
| further and address your snarks.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Truly tragic that Hacker News has moved away from
| politics.
| socialismisok wrote:
| It's honestly a bit shocking it's even made it to the front
| page.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| Weekend HN has more posts by the right-leaning culture
| warriors. Has been the case for several years at least. Race
| and Gender related topics seem to be more frequent on the
| weekends.
| contravariant wrote:
| There's 2 times more comments than minutes since the it was
| posted, about half of which are flagged, so I don't think
| this thread has long left.
| bavell wrote:
| I have strong opinions on this subject but I don't think it's
| possible to have a healthy and productive conversation about
| it in a forum and medium such as this.
| rufusroflpunch wrote:
| There are some subjects for which it is not possible to
| have a productive discussion at all anywhere, and this is
| one of them. This is an ideological difference so strong
| that it makes it difficult for the opposing views to even
| share a society.
| eganist wrote:
| It's already there; I'm having to quote specifics from the
| article to show just how dark this mindset is and link to
| topics like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF to fend off
| people who are ok erasing others who are trans.
|
| Lots of deaded comments calling comments in here some specific
| political ideology when all it is is people coming together to
| defend the _basic acknowledgment that people have a right to
| live as they are_ without being trampled on by others.
|
| Even this comment of mine, that only points out that the parent
| link is typical of trans-exclusionary radical feminism,
| fluctuates between as low as -5 and as much as +2 because
| there's a strain of people offended at being called out for
| their own hatred. It's so much easier to just _not hate people
| for being different_ rather than stewing on that pot of evil; I
| don 't get it. (Although I'm guessing the score fluctuation is
| based on which other community links back to this thread lol)
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| eganist wrote:
| rejectfinite wrote:
| fleddr wrote:
| joemazerino wrote:
| detaro wrote:
| What self-labeling is being denied to her? She seems to be
| mostly complaining about labels others use, in the general
| case.
| socialismisok wrote:
| Nobody is saying this woman isn't a woman or isn't allowed to
| identify as a woman. (Or mother.)
| Loveaway wrote:
| cbeach wrote:
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| "Are Women Adult Human Females?", Alex Byrne, MIT.
|
| [0] https://philarchive.org/archive/BYRAWAv5
| hobbitstan wrote:
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-11-19 23:01 UTC)