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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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I'm firmly in the camp of people who doesn't quite understand what a lot of "non-binary" people are doing with gender, despite being somewhat progressive and happy to exercise pronoun hospitality with such people. (I once heard an acquaintance describe their gender by saying, "if man is black, and woman is white, I'm purple - if you see me in monochrome, I'm more masculine, but really I'm not either of them" - and I was more confused than before I heard the analogy.)

I've seen various mottizens bring up the idea of "gender" being the latest subculture like goth or punk, and recently I stumbled across an interesting Tumblr post that accidentally circles around a similar insight. The whole thing is interesting, but I think you can get the gist from the following:

[...] I think there’s an interesting similarity in the way nonbinary (or genderqueer people in general) talk about the nuances of their gender and how people really big into specific music scenes talk about the nuances of the genres they listen to. Like there’s the description you give other people in your community, and the “normie” description you give to people who aren’t as familiar. And “genre” and “gender” are both constructs in similar ways too. Just my little binary observation tho.

and

so if someone identifies as a demigirl in some circles but to you they just say they’re nonbinary or even just “female”, they clocked you as a gender normie lol.

Now, I grant that the gender-as-fashion analogy isn't the only possible takeaway from this person's observations. I'm reminded of the "soul-editor" from the SCP Foundation Wiki that had symbols from every major world religion, as well as a few unknown ones. Who's to say that some phenomenological aspects of being human aren't so complex that no one set of vocabulary is capable of describing it all? Perhaps some qualities of human minds/souls/whatever are ineffable, or so unique and subjective that one cannot help but create a new label for oneself in describing one's personality?

But I have my doubts. Mostly, I often feel like people must be mislabeling something that I have in my "mental box" as well. (I've read accounts of genderfluid people who talk about "waking up feeling masc" some days and dressing the part, while suddenly and abruptly "feeling femme" partway through the day and wanting to change outfits - and I couldn't help but speculate if they hadn't attached special significance to what I label "moods" in myself.) I don't discount that there are many real human experiences that aren't in my "mental box." In a very real way, I can't do much more than guess what depression, schizophrenia, OCD or dozens of other seemingly real human experiences are like. If I'm being maximally humble about what a tiny part of the vast terrain of possible human experiences I occupy, I have to concede that I can't know that many people aren't out there experiencing "gender" in ways I never will.

My partner is a binary trans man, and many of my friends and acquaintances are part of the LGBT+ community. I still don't quite understand why someone in that extended friend group suddenly finds it very important to change their name, and let everybody know that their pronouns are "she/they" now - while changing nothing else about their appearance or presentation. I'm happy to use a new name for someone, if they don't make such changes too frequently for me to keep up with, but I often feel baffled by why they find it so important? It's not really a big deal to me, but I would like an explanation. Gender-as-fashion seems so tempting as an explanation, but I worry that it might be a false explanation flattening human experiences into something that's more comfortable to me - the same way, "that person who supposedly has ADHD is just lazy" might flatten a person with ADHD into a form more comfortable for neurotypical people, and not in a way that is very sympathetic to the person with ADHD.

I wish we could all just agree that sex is biological and gender is a social role. So if someone wants to say "Some days I feel masc, but other days I'm more femme," okay, whatever Demi Lovato. I'm even willing to use whatever pronouns you prefer, even if that means changing them from time to time (so long as you let me know what they are today and aren't going to throw a tantrum if I sometimes make a mistake). If attention-seeking teens want to claim they are Ψ-gendered today, you can accommodate them if you wish without agreeing that their physical bodies are in some Ψ state that is neither male nor female.

The real problem is not with teenagers who are trying to carve out special, quirky new identities for themselves, it's with the grown-ass adults who take this shit seriously and then run conflict theory on it.

I wish we could all just agree that sex is biological and gender is a social role

But this is just begging the question, isn't it? It's like Byzantine Christian monothelitites saying "I wish we could all just agree that Jesus' nature is Man but his hypostasis is Divine". To even get into the hypostasis debate is to concede to your interlocutor's point.

The correct response to the Byzantine Christian monothelitites is "hypostasis is just some term you made up to try and make yourself sound smart and smuggle in a bunch of theological assumptions in by connotation, Jesus was just a guy in a robe, he was born a Man and he's stuck as a Man only, that's just biology for ya, sorry, he doesn't get to be Divine by any measure even if he and you really really want him to be.'

You can probably see where I'm going with this but in the interest of plain speaking, the correct response to the gender theorists is "gender is just some term you made up to try and smuggle in a bunch of ideological assumptions in by connotation, Emerald Treespirit is just a guy in a robe, he was born a Man and he's stuck as a Man only, that's just biology for ya, sorry, he doesn't get to be a woman by any measure even if he and you really really want him to be.'

There is no such thing as gender, the way you act is contingent on the hormones in your brain and the hormones in your brain are contingent on your chromosomes. A man acting weird is a man acting weird, not a man filling the social role of a woman (or being the Messiah).

Historical precedent is that there is such a thing as gender, in the definition of "social role strongly defined by sex yet not entirely contingent on it". Sure, modern progressives wouldn't want Ancient Greece's gender roles, but once we've established that such a thing exists the rest is just haggling over the price.

There's no historical precedent for the divine.

Historical precedent is that there is such a thing as gender, in the definition of "social role strongly defined by sex yet not entirely contingent on it".

No, I do not grant your premise. As [another post which I can no longer find] remarks, the wounded octopus is not a septopus; nor is the crossdressing man a demigirl. The determination to define this behaviour as a whole new axis instead of a pathology on one axis is precisely what I object to.

There's no historical precedent for the divine.

This seems like the worst possible angle of attack given that there is tremendous historical precedent for the divine. "What is the sun and why do those stars move faster than those other stars?" is a question that demands an answer any time anyone looks up, and it's what led all historical human cultures down the divine rabbit hole. "Why do 0.001% of men want to wear skirts?" is not a question which anyone has been required to consider until modernity, an for such rounding errors and answer of "idiopathic madness" seems satisfactory.

"Why do 0.001% of men want to wear skirts?" is not a question which anyone has been required to consider until modernity, and for such rounding errors and answer of "idiopathic madness" seems satisfactory.

It is only slightly less modern than trans ideology to consistently think of men and women as something that is immutable from birth. The expression "a real man" would not exist if a penised-and-testiculed fertile male's manhood could not be in question.

The expression "a real man" would not exist if a penised-and-testiculed fertile male's manhood could not be in question.

DOES the expression exist in any language other than English? That mongrel tongue cobbled together from the detritus of four other languages and thus should not be particularly expected as being first for purpose?

Anyway, even if it does, this is a tremendous stretch. You're taking as literal that which is figurative. That the phrase "a real man" exists does not imply that the insulters really believe that the object of their mockery might be "an egg", or whatever the term is for an undiscovered trans-woman; or even that they believe such a thing is even logically possible. When I call my little brother "a stinky booger" this doesn't mean I believe that it is genuinely possible that a 50kg pile of dried mucous could be perambulatory.

DOES the expression exist in any language other than English?

Yes.

You're taking as literal that which is figurative.

I'm taking statements about one's social role and status as something that was apparently really fucking important back in the day.

That the phrase "a real man" exists does not imply that the insulters really believe that the object of their mockery might be "an egg", or whatever the term is for an undiscovered trans-woman

No, they probably didn't believe that specific thing, I already said the gender role climate wasn't what it's like today. It did exist, though. I'm confident that when someone said "man" in the era I'm talking about (hell, such societies still exist), they meant not "adult human male" but "human male who met all the social criteria to be called a man, optionally past puberty". The rest is haggling over the price.

The rest is haggling over the price

People have accept your premise, for the rest to be haggling over the price.