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I've tried coming at this topic from a few different angles over the years and I frequently find that one of the biggest hinderences to debates around gender is that there are many different and at times contradictory ways to be on both sides of the various questions regarding gender in modern society. I've decided to lay out what I think are the fundamental questions that people disagree with. In isolation I think I can reason any option for any of the below questions but certain combinations of answers seem like they can't coexist
Questions in dispute in the debates around gender:
\1. To what degree if any is gender related to sex?
A) gender and sex are the same thing B) gender and sex are tightly mapped but some people have a gender misaligned with their sex C) gender and sex are related but not tightly mapped D) gender is totally unrelated to sex\2. How many Genders are there?
A) two B) several C) Many D) A near infinite number\3. Who or what determines what a person's gender is:
A) society B) biology C) self\4. Sexual orientation(gay/straight/bisexual) is primarily related to the [Blank] of the object of attraction:
A) gender B) Sex C) Some combination of gender and sex D) none of the above\5. Are the differences between how men and women behave more socially or biologically derived:
A) Much more due to Social Pressures B) a near even mix C) Much more due to Biological differences\6. How much can an individual's gender change over time?
A) Gender can never change B) Gender is constant but someone's understanding of their gender can change C) Gender can change in response to dramatic life events D) Gender can be fluid and change frequently\7. Is the relationship between men and women or the relationship between males and females the primary focus of feminism?
A) men and women B) males and females C) both D) there is no difference\8. How is gender felt from a first person perspective?
A) an innate feeling separate from behavior and dress B) an inclination for certain behaviors and dress C) just the consequence of sexQuestions I'm excluding because while definitely relevant to policy discussions I don't believe are really fundamental to disagreements:
Are puberty blockers safe?
Do males and females differ in physical capability?
How well can any given transgendered person pass?
How much should we expect people to game gender affirming policies and what if anything should be done to prevent this
Examples playing with edge cases:
I - A Female dresses and behaves in a manner perfectly median in every metric for a woman in the society they live in. Is it legitimate for this person to identify as a man without changing any behavior?
II - A Female dresses and behaves in a manner perfectly median in every metric for a man in the society they live in. Is it legitimate for this person to identify as a woman without changing any behavior?
III - A Female, who dresses and behaves in a manner perfectly median in every metric for a woman in the society they live in, Meets A Female who dresses and behaves in a manner perfectly median in every metric for a man in the society they live in. They have sex. Was this a heterosexual coupling or a homosexual coupling? Does this answer change depending on what each partner identifies as? Does it matter if they never exchanged gender identity?
IV - A Male teenager is unsure about their gender identity, they are not classically masculine and are bullied for this. No one ever affirms their masculinity. They attempt a social transition and find those around them very supportive and constantly affirm their femininity which the teenager enjoys although doesn't particularly enjoy many of the feminine trappings. What criteria should the teenager use to gauge whether they are a girl, boy or other gender?
V - A Male who identifies as a man raised in a very standard American cultural context is abruptly transported to a different culture with exactly opposite norms for men and women but an otherwise similar culture. would you expect the person to identify as a man or woman?
VI - In A world where there are no visible secondary sex characteristics including strength differentials and a society where there is no social distinction between the sexes would this society invent gender? If so would gender primarily fall along sex lines?
Please feel free to compare and contrast how different sets of answers to these questions have different implications for these examples or new scenarios you find interesting or propose new relevant questions. I'm most interested in kind of mapping out how different 'factions' in the general debate might answer these questions.
edit: the formatting was right in the preview >_>
I am not going to answer any multiple choice quiz on this topic.
I will not waste time endlessly questioning what I already know, and instead focus on things that that are actually unknowns, not things that are said to be unknown by an ideologically confused group of people.
Any amount on time wasted on the question "what is gender" is time that you burned because you were gaslit into thinking that we already dont know what gender is.
I shudder at the amount of IQ hours wasted on this stupid topic.
"What is gender?" is malicious nerd spining. Its not a good faith forray into what category/classificatins are, its an ideological set of words with precise political endpoints.
Does it bother you that I didn't know which side of the debate you were on until the third linebreak?
No, it bothers me that the supposedly smart people here on the motte waste IQ-time on blatant nonsense.
I dont think the last 7000 discussions we had on "what is gender?" was actually motivated by curiosity towards answering a difficult to solve problem.
Its a desperate attempt to find a signal in the noise because a bunch of people (who operate under extremely loose epistemological standards) said there was a signal.
Im bothered by people's lack of ability to seperate out the chaff.
Understanding precisely what's going on with some stupid set of beliefs can be enlightening.
It can also be useful - if, hypothetically, said beliefs were held by the vast majority of the smartest, most influential, and most powerful people in your country / civilization (and also by most of the less smart, and less powerful people too). In that case, it's probably worth figuring out what they mean and why! Saying "lol this is dumb who cares" doesn't seem to help with that, or suggest ways to solve it.
I understand that "this is dumb who cares lol" can be used to hand wave away any discussion, and that a lot of important things might have seemed dumb in the past.
Fortunately in this case, it is very dumb evidenced by the fact that the theory is logically inconsistent in just about every level of analysis. Gender is infinitely malleable at the same time sex-change surgery is paramount? It's not like it hasn't proven itself to be NOT dumb, what pressing problem does the theory solve?
They need to come up with a better framework than "I can do whatever I want, and whatever I want is logically airtight"
Sure, but this is also true of 'all people are equal and we should love everyone', 'the Christian god exists and He is three persons co-equal in one substance', most schools of moral philosophy, and a lot of stuff people believe. My argument isn't "you should consider it because it might be right", it's "you should consider it because it's worth figuring out why people believe it" (same for all of the former). Also, it is currently winning.
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