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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32889 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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The point reiterated across the conversation is that there is strategic equivocation between the "gender identity" and "gender roles" definitions of gender used by trans-activists. (Both in what definitions is explicitly stated and what definitions are implicit in how they use the word.) I have no idea how you think that point is contradicted by them sometimes saying one of the two definitions being equivocated. What it does contradict is your claim that "Gender is not used to mean gender identity."

she is saying that gender identity is the determinant of what sexual organs doctors should give to patients who are transgender or who were given surgery as infants because they had both types of primary sexual characteristics.

No, the classification of which sex someone is by gender identity is regardless of having had surgery or any other traits besides gender identity.

It is counter to medical science to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for purposes of classifying someone as male or female. Gender identity does and should control when there is a need to classify an individual as a particular sex.

Again, she seems to me to be clearly talking purely in the context of deciding whether or not to perform gender-reassignment surgery.

The point reiterated across the conversation is that there is strategic equivocation between the "gender identity" and "gender roles" definitions of gender used by trans-activists.

Not in the original post. The original post, IIRC at this point, claimed or implied that sex and gender mean the same thing. And see my previous post, in which I said:

Once again, the claim I am defending is not that someone "becomes male." It that they identify as male. A concomitant claim often is that society should treat those people the same as those born with penises (ie, of the male sex), but that does not necessarily follow. In other words, there are two claims: 1) sex and gender are different things; and 2) society should, in many instances, treat them as if they are the same. I am discussing only #1, which is true by the definition of "gender"

In other words, the original post seemed to say, not trans activists engage in strategic equivocation, but rather that their claims are wrong or even nonsensical, even when read in the most sympathetic way possible. And, as I read that post, that argument was based on a conflation of "gender" and "gender identity." (or perhaps it was "sex" and "gender'). Hence, I merely pointed out that the claims of trans-activlsts are not intrinsically wrong; they are intrinsically wrong only under the vernacular understanding of "gender," one which is not normally used in sociology, nor by the many pro-trans sources I have cited. Is it possible that you are correct that some trans activists sometimes use the term differently, as part of a rhetorical strategy? Sure. But, again, that is not the original claim that I took issue with.

So, basically, I think we are arguing about two different things.

Again, she seems to me to be clearly talking purely in the context of deciding whether or not to perform gender-reassignment surgery.

It is an expert declaration to a court regarding H.B. 2, the North Carolina "bathroom bill" which prohibited municipal governments from mandating that organizations segregate their bathrooms according to gender identity, and further required schools and government facilities segregate them according to physical sex. It is not about gender-reassignment surgery. It is about categorizing which sex someone is for the purpose of segregating bathroom usage by sex, and argues that according to medical science the only valid determinant of someone's sex is gender identity.

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