Celestial-body-NOS
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User ID: 290
Celestial-body-NOS
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6mo ago
They haven't re-cast them as sex, they just disagreed with the goal of the pro-trans faction.
The re-casting was how they sought to thwart the goal of the pro-trans faction.
To the best of my understanding, the pro-trans faction proposed to divide sex from gender, such that all social distinctions would fall under the latter category, and the biological differences would be as private as any other medical history, HIPAA avant la lettre.
The anti-trans faction, believing themselves entitled to know, and act on the knowledge of, the genital/gonadal configurations of strangers, then started referring to 'sex' instead of 'gender', 'males' instead of 'men', and 'females' instead of 'women'; thus allowing them to make the assertion that other people's genitalia are any of their business without being seen to make said assertion, and avoid anyone asking why they are concerned with other people's anatomy.
Celestial-body-NOS
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20d ago
α
My answer¹ to "What is a woman?" is "It depends on the context."
In most contexts, a woman is a person whose gender identity is that found more commonly in people who have, or feel viscerally that they ought to have, concave genitalia. This is both trans-inclusive and non-circular, although one could, I suppose, model it as an expanding spiral.... (Note that 'born with concave genitalia', 'born with organs to produce large gametes', and 'has XX karyotype' are strongly correlated; thus, substituting any of them would still point to the same identity.)
In medical contexts, a trans person might be a man for some purposes and a woman for other purposes; the same can apply to some cis patients.
¹Unless the question is being asked by someone rudely shoving a camera in my face while I'm busy, in which case my answer will be "A large happy pile of public information". (If you know, you know.)
β
Part of the reason 'adult human female' rubs me the wrong way is that using 'female' as a noun in reference to humans is associated with misogyny. 'Adult female human' would avoid this, but 'female' as an adjective picks up much of the same flexibility in meaning as 'woman'. For the biological categories to which I believe you are attempting to gesture:
- 'genetically male/female' = which chromosomes they have
- 'gonadally male/female' = what gamete-producing organs they have
- 'gametically male/female' = what gametes they produce
- 'natal-anatomically male/female' = what was between their legs when they were born
- 'current-anatomically male/female' = what they have between their legs now
- 'hormonally male/female' = how much testosterone versus estrogen they have
Less biologically:
- 'aspirational-anatomically male/female' = what they intend to have between their legs, or would have given the opportunity
- 'male/female identified' = whether they identify as a man or a woman
- 'male/female presenting' = whether they look like a man or a woman
If and when we figure out how to grow new gonads in vitro, 'gonadally' and 'gametically' can be modified in the same manner as 'anatomically'.
γ
I have noticed a certain form of argument over the years, of the approximate form "My opponent knows that I am right and he is wrong, and is continuing to contradict me out of less-than-honest motives." It is annoying when it is Evangelical preachers assuming that non-Christians 'know' that Jesus Is Lord and reject Him in order to continue sinning, it is annoying when it is the Blue Tribe telling the Red Tribe "You know what an assault weapon is, and you know you don’t need one.", and it is annoying when it is the gender-critical assuming that everyone 'knows' that the True Definition Of Woman does not include trans-women.
Atheists actually believe that God doesn't exist, 2nd-Amendment advocates actually believe that they have legitimate reason to own firearms that the Blue Tribe thinks look scary, and progressives actually believe that trans-women are women.
δ
With regard to whether Islam is right about women, there are two clarifiying questions that need to be asked:
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What variety of Islam? If Fred Rogers and Fred Phelps can both be Christians, even both be Protestant Christians, and have such a wide gulf between them, I don't see why a similar gulf cannot exist between Zohran Mamdani and Abdul-Rahman Ballout.
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What are we comparing it to? Attitudes that seem retrograde compared to XXI. century progressivism look a lot more enlightened when compared to ante-Islamic Arabian paganism.
Celestial-body-NOS
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3mo ago
I wish we could just say "sex" rather than "natal sex": the sex you're born with is the sex you're stuck with.
If, as is my understanding, a distinction between 'sex' and 'gender' uses 'sex' to refer to biological factors and 'gender' to refer to mental and social factors, then biological sex is a combination of things, some of which we currently have the ability to change and some of which we do not.
If one defines 'sex' as "If I look between this person's legs (and don't get a face full of pepper spray), will I see a tallywhacker or a hoo-ha?", at least 5% and possibly as many as 13% of trans individuals (per statistics linked in a previous post by above) have changed sex from that with which they were born, and an unknown fraction more retain the sex with which they were born only due to lack of opportunity.
Celestial-body-NOS
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4mo ago
I'm really sick of you trying to make me (and other gender-critical people) sound ridiculous and/or perverted
And how do you think a trans-woman might feel, when people characterise her identity in such a manner?
imply that anyone who isn't maximally trans-affirming is a sexual deviant
The pro-trans side was not the first to use that particular tactic.
"Sex" is not reducible to genitals. Male bodies are not just female bodies which incidentally happen to have penises bolted on.
No, they also have testicles rather than ovaries; all other biological differences are downstream of the hormones produced by these organs, hence 'sequelae'. (definition)
FtttG thinks he's entitled to know about the genitals of complete strangers, but refuses to tell us why!!
I have re-read the linked posts and have not found anywhere where I have claimed that you refuse to tell us why you think you're entitled to know about the genitals of complete strangers; I am rejecting your claim that your reasons justify the intrusion on people's privacy.
If you walk into your manager's office and you're like "I want to see all my cow-orkers' complete medical charts, which will help me make Bayesian inferences on which ones are most likely to go postal, so I can shun them.", how amenable do you think your manager will be to your request?
Celestial-body-NOS
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6mo ago
You frame this as though this was some novel innovation on the part of an "anti-trans faction", but in fact entitlement to know and act on the genital/gonad configuration of strangers has been a bog-standard feature of society for centuries, and arguably back to the beginning of recorded history.
And when the pro-trans faction were like, 'But this isn't right!', and sought to change it, the anti-trans faction objected to their cheese being moved.
This is far from a unique pattern in history.
Celestial-body-NOS
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6mo ago
they are reliably stumped by the "what's a woman" question.
And thousands, perhaps millions, are reliably stumped by the "is a hotdog a sandwich" question, because most people still think of words as living in the Platonic Realm Of Forms rather than being pointers to fuzzy-edged categories. (I am once again asking you to Read the Sequences.)
If you're referring to Amy Coney Barrett and Merriam-Webster's usage note in the entry for 'sexual preference', please note that at least that particular lexicographic outfit considers their vocation to be describing how words are used, rather than prescribing how they ought to be used; thus they were not, like Willy the Word Decider, decreeing the term to be doubleplusungoodspeakful, but noting that many other people had taken offence at its use. (This is the same reason that certain four-letter words for below-the-waist bodily functions are listed as more taboo than four-letter words referring to the loss of eternal salvation: the man on the Clapham Omnibus will take more umbrage at "Fuck $NAME1" than he would at "God damn $NAME1".
Celestial-body-NOS
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6mo ago
Alice is 5' 2"/157 cm. Bob is 6' 3"/190 cm.
Expecting Bob to get something off a high shelf for Alice does not make Bob Alice's slave.
Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.
Rejecting the notion that the more able ought to help the less able is rejecting civilisation itself.
Celestial-body-NOS
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2yr ago
"any difference in outcome is caused by racism, we just need to find the racism"
I don't know of anything else that it could be; admittedly, the claims made by the aitchbeedeeists, if true, would describe racism perpetrated by nature.
Celestial-body-NOS
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3mo ago
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market’s din
List the ominous stern whisper, from the Delphic cave within
They enslave their children’s children who make compromise with sin.
"It's not a compromise with sin; we're just reducing expenses at the cost of throwing a rather small percentage of the population under the bus."
"Exactly what do you think a compromise with sin is?"
Do you really expect that conclusive proof of the inferiority of blacks RE: IQ and crime would lead to the reinstation of such or similar laws, as if society hadn't changed at all since then?
Society has changed, but it hasn't changed enough, and seems to be backsliding in some ways.
If there were a universally-(modulo-lizardman-constant)-acknowledged taboo against judging an individual by the actions of his/her/their demographic group, I would be a lot less worried. (cf. my discussion with @FtttG regarding discrimination on the basis of natal genitals and the sequelae thereof)
Celestial-body-NOS
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6mo ago
And the Southern States didn't agree that 'it isn't right' for plantation-mongers to own Black people.
Celestial-body-NOS
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13d ago
My practical definition, for most, but not all, purposes, is 'a person who identifies as a woman'; all the references to genitals, whether actual or desired, are for the purpose of defining 'identifies as a woman'.
There are a narrow set of purposes for which trans-women are men, and another narrow set for which some trans-women are men and some are women.
The gender identity that is correlated with having been born with concave genitals is also, in those born with convex genitals, correlated with a feeling that those genitals are wrong; that is why I brought up genital dysphoria.
Celestial-body-NOS
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3mo ago
So effeminate men are women, actually?
Not unless they identify as such.
And trans women, who aren't adopting the female gender role well enough aren't actually women?
They still identify as women, they're women.
(Perhaps you're thinking of gender presentation?)
Celestial-body-NOS
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3mo ago
what is a woman?
For most purposes, a woman is someone who either (a.) is of the gender identity found more commonly in people born with vulvas, or (b.) has no gender identity and has a vulva.
Right, but using "men" as your outgroup is ridiculous, no?
It is less than optimal, certainly; however, it can be made reasonable with a slight change: namely, reduce the scope from 'all men' to 'men who claim that certain actions by a woman constitute irrevocable consent to sex'¹.
If Alice does not want to have sex with Bob at this time, and has made this clear to him, and Bob forces himself upon Alice, Bob is always in the wrong. This does not change if Alice stays overnight at Bob's house rather than risk dying of hypothermia, it does not change if Bob paid for Alice's dinner, it does not change if Alice got drunk and pursued sex with every other man in their circle, it does not change if Alice eagerly consented to sex with Bob last week, and it does not change if Alice and Bob declared at a large public ceremony and in official records that they intended to have an ongoing sexual relationship; the same applies if the gender of either or both is reversed.
I would advise my daughter to avoid dating anyone who disputes this.
¹cf. claims that consenting to sex constitutes an absolute acceptance of the obligation to pregnancy.
Celestial-body-NOS
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6mo ago
The central philosophical grounding of transgenderism is that gender is socially constructed (and correspondingly malleable) and thus separable from the biological notion of sex. The idea that a "woman" (gender) is not necessarily "female" (sex) may be arguable, but it is at least comprehensible. Forget expecting future Supreme Court justices to know what woman means--journalists don't even seem to know what female means. Or, more likely: they are part of the trans prospiracy to simply deny facts about biological human sex typing. The sex/gender distinction was drawn for political purposes, and now is being collapsed for those same political purposes.
Because the anti-transgender faction, in response to the distinction as initially drawn by the pro-trans faction, was to take social matters of 'gender' and re-cast them as matters of 'sex', thus attempting to undo the exact goal of the pro-trans side, namely that biological sex ought not determine anything in social situations.
That principle is downstream of a more general left-wing ethos, that it is unjust for people to be limited by the circumstances of their birth, and that where we have the ability to make people not thus limited, we ought to do so. From this axiom, one can derive many other left-coded beliefs, which are left as an exercise for the reader.
Celestial-body-NOS
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6mo ago
repeated traffic violations might though
Maybe ICE should take the beam out of their own eye first, before they worry about the motes in immigrants' eyes.
Celestial-body-NOS
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1yr ago
A country capable of such measures is not worth defending.
Celestial-body-NOS
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1yr ago
following the norms of nature
Would these be the same 'norms of nature' that killed 40-50% of all pre-20th century children before their fifth birthday?
Celestial-body-NOS
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13d ago
you believe that a person [...] who identifies as a woman really is a woman.
For most purposes, she should be considered a woman. There are a few purposes for which it is legitimate to consider her a man, but those purposes are not, on the whole, any of most people's business.
As to the question "Is she really a woman?", I am afraid that there is no answer that will make the world fit into the neat little boxes which you learned in primary school; 'man' and 'woman' are not sharp-edged mutually-exclusive mutually-exhaustive categories of humanity.
They are also, insofar as such a thing exists, the same kind of being. Women and men are not separate species, any more than English people are a separate species from Irish people.
Celestial-body-NOS
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14d ago
if you meet a [trans person born with convex genitals and small-gamete-producing organs] who has not undergone a vaginoplasty and doesn't want one, do you consider that person a woman?
Yes, I consider her a woman for any purpose that does not involve her genitals. Gender identity strongly correlates with genitals, which is why the major gender identities are 'man' and 'woman'. If you draw a teal circle around everyone with a penis, an orange circle around everyone with a vagina, and a provisionally non-coloured circle around each of the two gender-identity clusters, one of the colourless circles will mostly, but not entirely, overlap with the orange circle, and the other will mostly, but not entirely, overlap with the teal circle; thus we colour them respectively pink and blue. Anyone in the pink circle is a woman, even if she has no interest in leaving the teal circle, unless you are personally interacting with the parts between her legs.
As I've argued repeatedly before, it sure is interesting that trans activists are so keen on "rigorously disambiguating" different categories of people and using maximally clear terminology
... right up to the point where someone points out that, regardless of how they identify, a male person remains male, with all that implies, at which point these trans activists throw a tantrum and call you a Nazi.
The implications of which you speak are the objectionable part. I am not disputing the factual accuracy of the statement "A person born with testicules remains a person born with testicules."; I am disputing the claim "Alice having been born with testicules is more salient than any other characteristic, to such a degree that it deserves the one-or-two-syllable terminology.", and the claim "Because Alice was born with testicules, she should be treated as a delusional patient at best and a sex pest at worst.".
Dora Moutot bent over backwards to avoid using language that trans-identified males might find offensive, insisting that women need to be wary of "people with penises", and she still got slapped with a €1,000 fine. Don't dare tell me these trans neologisms are just about maximally unambiguous language.
The issue as I understand it was not the language used, but the endorsement of the notion that individuals may rightfully be held to account for the misdeeds of those with whom they share features; i. e., discrimination not on the basis of individual conduct but on the basis of group membership.
A town in the Southern United States removing a sign saying "[Anagram of ginger], don't let the sun set on you in ______" with one that says "Persons with greater than x amount of melanin per square inch of skin...." has not absolved itself of racism.
...I find it annoying, along with many of your verbal tics....
Well, I find it annoying that you persistently refer to trans-women as 'trans-identified males'.
Celestial-body-NOS
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1mo ago
He is allowed to criticize Wikipedia.
He is also welcome to start his own version with deadnames and deadpronouns if he feels like it.
Celestial-body-NOS
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3mo ago
Sometimes I wonder if there's anyone left anywhere who actually believes this.
I don't know whether it is possible to achieve, but it would be a good outcome if it were, and I believe it is every person's duty to put their greatest effort towards it.
Those of us who try, even if we are not successful, will be able to stand before the Ultimate Judge and say that we did not fail to do our utmost.
Same thing applies to the Blue-Tribe hue and cry over the government paying Elongated Muskrat to put their satellites in orbit....
(edit: the government's satellites; NASA, USGS, NRO, &c. &c.). Sorry if that wasn't clear.
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