The Gender Debate

[D Angelo Barksdale]

[craigkillie]

I’m reading about the Transabled. People who identify as disabled even thought they are not. They feel one or more limbs or functions of their body do not belong to themselves.
 
One woman Chloe Jennings-White wants to be permanently paralysed and is willing to pay thousands of pounds to make it happen. 
 
Psychiatrist Dr Mark Malan, who treats Chloe, told the paper: "The question I often ask is, is it better to have somebody pretending to use a wheelchair, or to commit suicide?
 
What a brave woman. I hope she gets what she wants.

What does this have to do with trans people?

[SweeperDee]

What does this have to do with trans people?

Literally nothing, but he knows that.

[carpetmonster]

On 04/07/2022 at 06:20, welshbairn said:

Rather than genital inspectors guarding every ladies toilet, perhaps customers could just be asked to point out where they are on a map? Anyone within a certain level of accuracy could be refused entry. 

I think ‘transvestigator’ might be preferred to ‘genital inspector’ now mate 

 

[Boo Khaki]

Are they still convinced Barrack Obama is gay and Michelle is really a man?

[BFTD]

7 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

Are they still convinced Barrack Obama is gay and Michelle is really a man?

Dunno, let's find out.

@steve55

[Detournement]

I actually saw a Drag Queen Story Time thing with loads of weans in Camden the other week.

A strange way to spend your Sunday afternoon but each to their own.

Edit - Just googled and it was a free event so a smart move from the parents in attendance.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Detournement

[SweeperDee]

Interesting court case.
On balance I think this is the correct decision. The original judge seems to have confused the issue of persecution of trans people with the issue of taking a reasonable view on whether they are male or female. There is a vast difference between the two positions and the appeal judge has correctly IMO over-turned this error. This woman is perfectly entitled to hold the view that trans women are not real women and that's been confirmed by law.
Maya Forstater: Woman wins tribunal appeal over transgender tweets - BBC News
I have no idea why so many people cannot accept that it is logically consistent to both support the rights of trans people whilst questioning whether they have actually changed their gender or not. It's not as though the science is completely settled on the matter. Opinions differ and it's discussion and debate which will see a resolution to this - not silencing people and taking their jobs from them.
The level of debate on this is frankly pathetic.

Sex is not the same as gender.

[Binos]

[SweeperDee]

That is not a fact. It is an opinion. People are welcome to hold that opinion but it's not universally agreed.

[Theroadlesstravelled]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62061929

 

[SweeperDee]

Not sure what point you think you are making here.
How does that tie in with those trans people who seek "gender changing" operations? Or do they really mean "sex change" operations? Is it about gender or sex?

They are undergoing a “sex change” to reflect their gender. The results are obviously varied, but they do this to fortify their preferred gender.

[oneteaminglasgow]

56 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Not sure what point you think you are making here.

How does that tie in with those trans people who seek "gender changing" operations? Or do they really mean "sex change" operations? Is it about gender or sex?

They’re called gender affirmation surgeries now.

[SweeperDee]

They’re called gender affirmation surgeries now.

He will poopoo this bit of info as “convenient” no doubt, he’s stuck in the past.

[Sergeant Wilson]

4 hours ago, SweeperDee said:

They are undergoing a “sex change” to reflect their gender. The results are obviously varied, 

What are the possible outcomes?

[AsimButtHitsASix]

1 hour ago, oaksoft said:

Actually, I'm coming to the position of falling on the side of science on this one. It's no more than an interesting scientific question for me rather than something I have a particular issue with. I'm sorry if that is inconvenient for you. You seem desperate to paint me as transphobic. There's no hatred or fear coming from this side of the table.

Other than ridiculous dog's abuse from people like you, I'm hearing no compelling argument whatsoever that gender and sex are different things. Quite the opposite. I haven't seen a good answer to the question of what makes a man an man and a woman a woman. That's because when you remove the link with sex chromosomes you have no words to describe either. That makes absolutely no sense. It's like trying to describe a tree but banning the words "wood", "leaf", "root", "twig", "branch" and green. I haven't seen a single plausible explanation for what "feeling like a man" feels like either. There's no such thing outside of chromosomes. That's why people, including trans people, are struggling to answer the question.

I'm leaning towards the view that sex and gender are probably the same thing, are linked to chromosomes and that trans people can't change their sex chromosomes and therefore can't change their sex.

I'm open to persuasion but only on the basis of science.

As for why trans people feel the way they do? Who knows. And frankly it doesn't really matter.

Having said all of that, these people are humans and deserve to be treated as equals in that regard. Couldn't care less about which toilets they use, which clothes they want to wear, which surgery they do or don't want to have and honestly I'm not too fussed about within reason which pronouns they want to use either. But is a trans man a real man? Or a trans woman a real woman? I'm not persuaded at all for the time being.

Embrace your own life path folks. We'll all be dead soon enough.

"Chromosomal" sex isn't binary tho'. There is a gene called SRY which activates the (then) non-sexed gonad cells one way or another. But, depending on the strength of this gene, the time of production and god knows how many other factors it can leave XY people with (functioning) female genitals and XX people with (functioning) male genitals. There's also the often ignored intersex people as well but, for now, we'll keep it binary.

There are many different ways that chromosomes can deviate from XX and XY and there many ways that people can still be within the XX/XY binary but present differently to their chromosomes. Now, if we ignore the hundreds of other purely biological factors that could lead to people seeing themselves as trans (or cis) gender and focus ONLY on chromosomes that's your answer as to why sex and gender are not the same thing. The woman in Australia who only discovered, after giving birth to her third child, that she had XY chromosones? Didn't mean she classed herself as male despite being, very clearly, a male if we took sex only by chromosomes. 

If we do, however, attach the wide variety of sex on the chromosomal spectrum to other sexual indicators it goes a bit mental. As we have begun mapping the human genome we've found there are many genes that are attached to sex and that very few, if any, people will have 100% of these genes that attribute to sex all pointing in the same direction. This could lead to very tiny differences such as a woman who has more hair growth on her body than most women or a man who, when he gains weight, finds it gives his man boobs as opposed to a belly or shoulders. It's not a stretch to say that, if enough of these indicators point in different directions, it would lead to hormonal changes, genetic changes, behavioural changes and so forth. If we take all visible differences in sex development (where a person will have something naturally occurring but visibly incongruous with their assigned gender) we describe around 1% of the population. 

This is only looking at genetics. It says nothing about neurobiology and the limitless differences in brain development. Brains were considered to be sexually dimorphous in some areas but not if we take sex and gender as the same. For instance the preoptic area was always thought to be larger in males than women but, when they have looked at this part of the brain in transwomen it's not. So their "brain" or at least part of it is very clearly female. So their brain matches their gender and not their "sex". Of course it is the brain that "decides" which hormones to produce and regulate and, as any woman on the East German Olympic team will tell you, an unexpected boost of the "wrong" hormone going into your system can have massive effects on your personality and behaviour. Even sexual preference or gender identity. 

But that's all just a load of scientific stuff to show that sex is not binary and there's all sort of weird and wonderful crossovers and mismatches that make up the spectrum of all humanity. It doesn't really show there's a difference between sex and gender if you think everytime I said sex there I could have said gender or vice versa.

However the fact is gender is viewed differently across cultures. All cultures view sex as binary. Not all cultures view gender as binary. Samoans have Fa'fafine, their third gender, and it appears on their passports if they want it. New Zealanders can have it as well I think. They're not considered male or female in Samoan culture. They have a gender and it is a very specific one. Gender is just the word we use to describe the societal expectation of the sex and no more. 

Edited July 6, 2022 by AsimButtHitsASix

[Theroadlesstravelled]

41 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

What are the possible outcomes?

In the case of Boris he got a dick on his head.

[Thorongil]

On 04/07/2022 at 23:28, craigkillie said:

What does this have to do with trans people?

Or Pans People?!?!

[velo army]

21 hours ago, oaksoft said:

That is not a fact. It is an opinion. People are welcome to hold that opinion but it's not universally agreed.

Have a look at the anthropology of gender, it's pretty enlightening and, I think , liberating. Rather than think of it in terms of facts and opinions I view it as an ongoing enquiry, but one that ought to be done in good faith and with compassion.  Gender is constructed and expressed differently across cultures and is based on what that culture deems to be either masculine or feminine. Those masculine and feminine traits are often ideas projected onto perceived physical differences. Gender changes over time, but sex does not. What it means to be a man in our society has undergone constant revision, often due to social changes and larger psychosocial healing. An example being that men are now allowed to be nurturing and emotionally expressive. It's more rewarded now. The gender role of men is changing. Changes in the gender paradigm have also given women permission to be leaders, to be rational decision makers and are trusted with such responsibility as they are no longer deemed mentally fragile due to being overly emotional as, broadly speaking, their ascribed gender role would have it. These are very broad brush examples, and the veracity of them from person to person isn't relevant. What is relevant is that we have myriad examples that this thing we call gender seems to be more malleable than had previously been thought of. Gender roles were thought to be biologically determined, but under dedicated scrutiny they have been shown to be determined by social psychology. 

Sex differences remain largely constant, but even then we have the likes of Caster Semanya, who seems to defy the binary paradigm of the sexes. If one of the goals of a civilised society is to make everyone feel welcome and included (and I think it should be) then it perhaps behoves us to call into question paradigms and structures (strictures too) that create so many outliers as they obviously no longer fit. 

 

[Cosmic Joe]

16 hours ago, oaksoft said:

Actually, I'm coming to the position of falling on the side of science on this one. It's no more than an interesting scientific question for me rather than something I have a particular issue with. I'm sorry if that is inconvenient for you. You seem desperate to paint me as transphobic. There's no hatred or fear coming from this side of the table.

 

You've proven that you are more than capable of doing that yourself over the course of this thread, without any help from anyone.