The Gender Non-binary debate.
Discussion
gregs656 said:
Sorry to trim but you clearly have not read on this subject very much at all.
Development is far more complex than you give it credit for.
Every time you respond you make a snide comment implying I don’t know what I’m talking about and that you do - yet you never actually provide an explanation or reference to support your claim. If you are so knowledgeable then why not set this out? If beneath you then why bother posting at all? This is a car forum not a specialist one for gender issues so if you do have actual, relevant knowledge (like the biologist on the Covid threads) it would be useful. Development is far more complex than you give it credit for.
To be clear - are you claiming that there are more sexes than male or female? If yes why and evidence please.
Esceptico said:
To be clear - are you claiming that there are more sexes than male or female? If yes why and evidence please.
Surely a polymath like yourself must be aware of the fact that humans can be intersex, and that current scientific consensus is that the definition of sex (as opposed to gender) is far more complex than a binary combination of X and Y chromosomes? I find so many concepts discussed in the gender debate really difficult to get my head around. I will fully accept my ignorance even though I have attempted to ‘educate myself’ on the issues. Whenever I try and comprehend the concept of non-binary and gender-fluid it’s almost like I get a ‘syntax error’ in my brain.
Maybe having the privilege of never needing to question one’s gender makes it next to impossible to understand. It’s easy to call someone by their preferred pronouns but my brain will still be thinking ‘this trans-woman is actually a man’.
Maybe having the privilege of never needing to question one’s gender makes it next to impossible to understand. It’s easy to call someone by their preferred pronouns but my brain will still be thinking ‘this trans-woman is actually a man’.
Edited by JmatthewB on Saturday 5th December 00:34
Clockwork Cupcake said:
This feels like a very confused and inconsistent post.
On the one hand you acknowledge that gender is a social construct, which seems to imply that you accept that people can move from one construct to the other. Which, indeed, is exactly what is permitted on some cultures. The Native Americans had the concept of "Two Spirit" and some cultures in Asia and the Indian sub-continent have the concept of "third gender".
Then you seem to negate that by talking about physiological characteristics as defining gender. Despite the fact that intersex is a biological fact, and despite the fact that the physiological traits you mention are not shared by all biological women (not all menstruate. Not all have wombs.)
And that completely flies in the face of you saying that gender is a social construct.
I think you are confusing gender with biological sex. They are not one and the same, and although for many people they correlate, for others they do not.
As I said before, you appear to have read much but understand little. Or, at the very least, drawn some very poor conclusions from the available information.
(For the avoidance of doubt, this is not intended to be insulting and is not a personal jibe.)
The use of the term gender, rather than sex, became popular in the 70s and particularly amongst feminists. My understanding is that it became popular because the biological differences between men and women didn’t explain why women were treated differently (ie mainly worse than men). It also seemed an attempt to counter the biological determinists (again by men) trying to keep women in the bedroom and/or kitchen. Gender was seen as an extension, not a replacement for biological sex ie to be female gendered you had to be biologically female. At the time that seemed so self evident no one had to add it to the definition. On the one hand you acknowledge that gender is a social construct, which seems to imply that you accept that people can move from one construct to the other. Which, indeed, is exactly what is permitted on some cultures. The Native Americans had the concept of "Two Spirit" and some cultures in Asia and the Indian sub-continent have the concept of "third gender".
Then you seem to negate that by talking about physiological characteristics as defining gender. Despite the fact that intersex is a biological fact, and despite the fact that the physiological traits you mention are not shared by all biological women (not all menstruate. Not all have wombs.)
And that completely flies in the face of you saying that gender is a social construct.
I think you are confusing gender with biological sex. They are not one and the same, and although for many people they correlate, for others they do not.
As I said before, you appear to have read much but understand little. Or, at the very least, drawn some very poor conclusions from the available information.
(For the avoidance of doubt, this is not intended to be insulting and is not a personal jibe.)
Edited by Clockwork Cupcake on Friday 4th December 23:44
Humans are one animal so what men and women have in common is much more than what separates us. As far as I can see, the differences between the genders are firmly rooted in the biological differences. Without the link to biological sex the concept of gender seems meaningless to me.
JmatthewB said:
I find so many concepts discussed in the gender debate really difficult to get my head around. I will fully accept my ignorance even though I have attempted to ‘educate myself’ on the issues. Whenever I try and comprehend the concept of non-binary and gender-fluid it’s almost like a get a ‘syntax error’ in my brain.
Maybe having the privilege of never needing to question one’s gender makes it next to impossible to understand. It’s easy to call someone by their preferred pronouns but my brain will still be thinking ‘this trans-woman is actually a man’.
I sympathise. I really do. Maybe having the privilege of never needing to question one’s gender makes it next to impossible to understand. It’s easy to call someone by their preferred pronouns but my brain will still be thinking ‘this trans-woman is actually a man’.
Clockwork Cupcake said:
Surely a polymath like yourself must be aware of the fact that humans can be intersex, and that current scientific consensus is that the definition of sex (as opposed to gender) is far more complex than a binary combination of X and Y chromosomes?
I already alluded to that red herring argument. Intersex people are a genetic and/or developmental error. Do intersex people breed and give birth to more intersex people? How many legs do humans have? Is it two? What about people born with no legs? Is that because there is a sub species of humans with no legs? Or because some genetic or developmental problem resulted in them being born with no legs? If you can show me cases where intersex people exist that have not been caused by genetic or developmental problems I would be interested to know.
This is a personal question so perhaps you don’t want to answer it but are you in fact intersex? Do you know any trans people that are intersex?
I have read about intersex people and the problems they face, particularly those where a determination was made a birth as to what sex they were and how they should be brought up. In some cases this involved mutilating them at birth, removing what was thought to be the “wrong” organ, only for them to find out later in life that despite appearances they were probably more biased towards the other sex. As far as I was aware the subset of trans people who are intersex is quite small though and most trans people are clearly one or other biological sex.
Esceptico said:
I already alluded to that red herring argument. Intersex people are a genetic and/or developmental error. Do intersex people breed and give birth to more intersex people?
Yet they exist. In clear contravention to your assertion that sex is binary. And despite you also seeming to acknowledge that gender is a social construct. So I really fail to see how data that contradicts your assertion can be classed as a red herring.
As I said, the scientific consensus these days is that trying to define biological sex merely by chromosomes and physiological characteristics is naive. And that is even before we get into the debate of sex vs gender.
Esceptico said:
I already alluded to that red herring argument. Intersex people are a genetic and/or developmental error. Do intersex people breed and give birth to more intersex people?
.
Apologies I haven’t been in this thread for a while, so excuse me for jumping in. Esceptico, you’re position depends on taking a simplistic view of biology. We often make the mistake of viewing individuals that are phenotyically at variance with the a majority as being genetic abnormalities, mutants even. That is the result of a misplaced expectation that nature somehow strives for perfection, or uniformity. This quite simply isn’t so. You see humans as male or female, because as you rightly say, that is the majority trait, but humans are quite obviously not just male or female. You choose intersex as an example of a genetic or developmental defect, but i think this is to take an erroneous view of what it is to be human. It is better to view this as a minority human trait. We only see it as a genetic abnormality because of our obsession with defining species by their type specimens, to use a biology analogy. .
Esceptico said:
The use of the term gender, rather than sex, became popular in the 70s and particularly amongst feminists. My understanding is that it became popular because the biological differences between men and women didn’t explain why women were treated differently (ie mainly worse than men). It also seemed an attempt to counter the biological determinists (again by men) trying to keep women in the bedroom and/or kitchen. Gender was seen as an extension, not a replacement for biological sex ie to be female gendered you had to be biologically female. At the time that seemed so self evident no one had to add it to the definition.
Humans are one animal so what men and women have in common is much more than what separates us. As far as I can see, the differences between the genders are firmly rooted in the biological differences. Without the link to biological sex the concept of gender seems meaningless to me.
Maybe do some more reading on the subjectHumans are one animal so what men and women have in common is much more than what separates us. As far as I can see, the differences between the genders are firmly rooted in the biological differences. Without the link to biological sex the concept of gender seems meaningless to me.
https://qz.com/1190996/scientific-research-shows-g...
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-u...
Esceptico said:
Every time you respond you make a snide comment implying I don’t know what I’m talking about and that you do - yet you never actually provide an explanation or reference to support your claim. If you are so knowledgeable then why not set this out? If beneath you then why bother posting at all? This is a car forum not a specialist one for gender issues so if you do have actual, relevant knowledge (like the biologist on the Covid threads) it would be useful.
To be clear - are you claiming that there are more sexes than male or female? If yes why and evidence please.
If I am coming across as snide it is because you implied you were a polymath who was well read on this. I have seen no evidence of this. To be clear - are you claiming that there are more sexes than male or female? If yes why and evidence please.
Now you seem to be suggesting you shouldn’t be expected to know anything about this because it is a car forum.
My frustration is largely because your discussion points are so well trodden on this thread and so well covered my the ‘regular’ contributors.
The fact that you clearly do not know of studies that look at the brain structure for example of cis gendered individuals in comparison to trans gendered individuals and the interesting results from those studies (despite consistently framing your position and the scientific one) is a strong indicator to me that you have not done even cursory reading on this subject which makes your previous claim to be a polymath (in defence of your position specifically on this topic) a little cringe worthy.
I have posted this article several times - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-u...
There is also an excellent article about gender in sport, posted on another thread on here which covers some very interesting areas. I will try and find it.
gregs656 said:
If I am coming across as snide it is because you implied you were a polymath who was well read on this. I have seen no evidence of this.
Now you seem to be suggesting you shouldn’t be expected to know anything about this because it is a car forum.
My frustration is largely because your discussion points are so well trodden on this thread and so well covered my the ‘regular’ contributors.
The fact that you clearly do not know of studies that look at the brain structure for example of cis gendered individuals in comparison to trans gendered individuals and the interesting results from those studies (despite consistently framing your position and the scientific one) is a strong indicator to me that you have not done even cursory reading on this subject which makes your previous claim to be a polymath (in defence of your position specifically on this topic) a little cringe worthy.
I have posted this article several times - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-u...
There is also an excellent article about gender in sport, posted on another thread on here which covers some very interesting areas. I will try and find it.
I have already read the article posted and read similar things elsewhere. I find the article rather disingenuous to be honest as the evidence presented is not sufficient for the conclusion reached. It reads rather as evidence sought to support the writer’s opinion. The whole topic seems to be polluted with politics. Now you seem to be suggesting you shouldn’t be expected to know anything about this because it is a car forum.
My frustration is largely because your discussion points are so well trodden on this thread and so well covered my the ‘regular’ contributors.
The fact that you clearly do not know of studies that look at the brain structure for example of cis gendered individuals in comparison to trans gendered individuals and the interesting results from those studies (despite consistently framing your position and the scientific one) is a strong indicator to me that you have not done even cursory reading on this subject which makes your previous claim to be a polymath (in defence of your position specifically on this topic) a little cringe worthy.
I have posted this article several times - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-u...
There is also an excellent article about gender in sport, posted on another thread on here which covers some very interesting areas. I will try and find it.
Strange how for similar fact patterns the approach taken is very different. We know that there are genetic differences between different pools of humans - at a minimum Europeans contain Neanderthal DNA, some Asians have Denisovan DNA whilst African populations have neither. Would you therefore argue we should divide up Homo sapiens into different “races” based on such characteristics? Clearly that risks then ugly head of racism rising and almost all people in the field fall over themselves to say that such differences are immaterial and we are all one big happy family.
The labels of male and female are human generated. We are free to change their meaning but if the end result is something that seems out of kilter with the lived reality of most people then the usefulness and validity of such terms can be called into question.
Some people are intersex ie show some characteristics of both sexes. The research in the linked article hints that there might be differences in the brain of trans people (although confusingly the article also dismisses sexual differences in the brain) but much further work would be required, in my view, to support allocating an individual from the category of “male” to “female”. If a person has a penis, balls, normal testosterone and other characteristics of a male but a more “female” brain, how would they be classified?
But as pointed out, gender is more than just sex. Yet our genders are linked inextricably to our sex. The concept of gender would be meaningless if we were asexual. As so much of the female experience (at least to the extent it differs from being a man) is linked to their body if is valid to include trans women as equivalent to women? I’ve not seen anything yet that is conclusive but open to be convinced.
Iwantafusca said:
Am i correct in saying that intersex groups are not happy at being brought into the trans debate , amid spurious claims they are a 3rd sex by some ?
No.Intersex and Trans advocacy groups work to support eachother. Clair Graham and Mumsnet do not speak for them.
Using dehuminising and harmful language as has been used by the gender critical side above is not helpful, but I have made my thoughts known previously about the use of words like mutilation.
Esceptico said:
You are absolutely correct in that there are “a lot of musings” about gender and gender dysmorphia, a lot of it very contradictory. What I object to is one “opinion” being presented as incontrovertible fact and not open to debate or discussion.
You seem to be confusing opinion with experience. Gender critical and the general public have an opinion on trans people. Trans people have experience and experience counts for a hell of a lot more than opinion and especially when the opinion is either uniformed or misinformed or myopic which even if your self proclaimed polymath the chances are if your reading mainstream and even a lot of specialist media, unless your talking to trans people your not getting a complete picture or rounded education on the subject, and your attitude here indicates you are not prepared to listen to trans people because you know best in your opinion. Esceptico said:
I have read about intersex people and the problems they face, particularly those where a determination was made a birth as to what sex they were and how they should be brought up. In some cases this involved mutilating them at birth, removing what was thought to be the “wrong” organ, only for them to find out later in life that despite appearances they were probably more biased towards the other sex. As far as I was aware the subset of trans people who are intersex is quite small though and most trans people are clearly one or other biological sex.
It seems strange and there is a level of cognitive dissidence that you seem to accept that intersex infants that have a sex chosen and enforced upon them can later self identify as the other sex, but trans people can not do similar. Either there is a concept of gender identity that causes those intersex kids to grow up identifying as the sex that has not been chosen for them or there isn't. The evidence is clearly in favour of gender identity existing even if we don't understand the brain to a level to evidence it physically. But then I dare you to find the physical evidence supporting personality, something that clearly we accept is a thing. gregs656 said:
Esceptico said:
Humans like all mammals (as far as I know) have two sexes - male and female. That is how we reproduce. For most of human existence that was a fairly obvious truth. etc etc
Sorry to trim but you clearly have not read on this subject very much at all.Development is far more complex than you give it credit for.
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