The Gender Non-binary debate.

[XM5ER]

Here's a bit of fun for ya.

The conceptual penis as a social construct

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/05/1...

[AlexC1981]

Shuvi McTupya said:

AlexC1981 said:

You can have an opinion on gender fluidity but to form an opinion on a subject it is best to look at it from all points of view. Just for a moment, pretend that as of this moment something has flicked in your head and you feel like the opposite gender to what you are.

Can you describe how this feels? What are you thinking about? What emotions you are feeling? What are you going to do now?

No, I can't imagine how it would feel to be a woman, nor do I know how it would feel to be a different race.

Are you suggesting LBGTQ people put themselves in the shoes of a heterosexual before forming an opinion?

As you say, you can't imagine what that's like so the information you have informed your opinion on is based on somewhat shaky ground. It's certainly not based on any empathy. You telling a gender fluid person about gender is like me trying to tell Stephen Hawking about quantum gravity. I could get the basics, but the intricacies and understanding will go way over my head.

Perhaps it is fair to recognise gender fluidity and make allowances for it? Perhaps that would even be a nice thing to do. You might not be able to put yourself in their sparkly high heeled shoes, but you can show a bit of empathy.

And yes, in answer to your second point, everyone should consider the views of all sides in the interest of fairness before forming an opinion and sticking with it. Especially if that opinion could have a negative effect on others.

Sorry if I'm being a bit preachy but I really think that of all the people in the world who deserve any dislike and hatred, people who are different gendered wouldn't make the list. Anyone who thinks they are a bother is just kicking up a fuss for no good reason.

[Shuvi McTupya]

AlexC1981 said:

As you say, you can't imagine what that's like so the information you have informed your opinion on is based on somewhat shaky ground. It's certainly not based on any empathy. You telling a gender fluid person about gender is like me trying to tell Stephen Hawking about quantum gravity. I could get the basics, but the intricacies and understanding will go way over my head.

Perhaps it is fair to recognise gender fluidity and make allowances for it? Perhaps that would even be a nice thing to do. You might not be able to put yourself in their sparkly high heeled shoes, but you can show a bit of empathy.

And yes, in answer to your second point, everyone should consider the views of all sides in the interest of fairness before forming an opinion and sticking with it. Especially if that opinion could have a negative effect on others.

Sorry if I'm being a bit preachy but I really think that of all the people in the world who deserve any dislike and hatred, people who are different gendered wouldn't make the list. Anyone who thinks they are a bother is just kicking up a fuss for no good reason.

As far as I am concerned, I would never kick up a fuss about other people's mental conditions. While it may seem strange to describe someone's sexuality as a mental condition, it is not meant to be insulting, it seems quite accurate in some cases, like a mood swing.
Everyone's brain is wired differently, some of us are depressed or suffer from anxieties, some of us have even more severe feelings, possibly suicidal or homicidal for example. Some of us have gender issues. Some of us are Paedophile. None of these things are personal choices.
Some people (lucky bds) are perfectly Happy.

All of us have to deal with what we have in the best way we can and just get on with it. Some of us battle on in silence, some of us Can not contain our feelings and go on to kill or hurt ourselves or others etc.

I do appreciate that feeling like you do not belong in your own body must be awful, but I don't expect to have to try and put myself in everyone else's position, I don't have the time or energy!

You are quite perceptive though, you have mentioned my lack of empathy. That is not a choice I have made. It has been pointed out to me by a professional that I suffer from a severe lack of empathy and a number of social issues and anxieties. It has been suggested that I should get registered or diagnosed with (quite a light degree of) autism, but I don't see the point. It won't make any difference to me or to 99% of other people, but it might make some people single me out for special treatment, which I do not want.

I guess my point (if I have one) is that we all have to do whatever we have to do to get by but our problems for the most part, are our own.

[alock]

AlexC1981 said:

Perhaps it is fair to recognise gender fluidity and make allowances for it? Perhaps that would even be a nice thing to do. You might not be able to put yourself in their sparkly high heeled shoes, but you can show a bit of empathy.

And yes, in answer to your second point, everyone should consider the views of all sides in the interest of fairness before forming an opinion and sticking with it. Especially if that opinion could have a negative effect on others.

Sorry if I'm being a bit preachy but I really think that of all the people in the world who deserve any dislike and hatred, people who are different gendered wouldn't make the list. Anyone who thinks they are a bother is just kicking up a fuss for no good reason.

The problem with your approach is that you are not making allowances for other minorities. You talk about empathy and being nice to other people and yet expecting me to use specific words has zero empathy for my situation.

I have a stutter. I use word replacement all the time to avoid words which I have trouble with. Most of the time this goes unnoticed but at least once a day I will get a little chuckle off someone because they think I've used the wrong word in a sentence.

The new Canadian law this thread is about would make it illegal for me to try and speak fluently using the techniques I have learnt over the last 40 years. The exact pronoun someone wants to be refered to is of very little importance to me when trying to form a sentence in my head I can actually say.

How about a little empathy the other way? Just because you were born with the ability to speak fluently doesn't mean you should be able to force these new complex language subtleties on to others. Why make me a criminal because you are one of the privileged majority? To do it in the name of protecting minorities is even more bizarre.

[AlexC1981]

Shuvi McTupya said:

You are quite perceptive though, you have mentioned my lack of empathy. That is not a choice I have made. It has been pointed out to me by a professional that I suffer from a severe lack of empathy and a number of social issues and anxieties. It has been suggested that I should get registered or diagnosed with (quite a light degree of) autism, but I don't see the point. It won't make any difference to me or to 99% of other people, but it might make some people single me out for special treatment, which I do not want.

I guess my point (if I have one) is that we all have to do whatever we have to do to get by but our problems for the most part, are our own.

I'm sure other people must make allowances for you all the time in that case and you might not know.

alock said:

The problem with your approach is that you are not making allowances for other minorities. You talk about empathy and being nice to other people and yet expecting me to use specific words has zero empathy for my situation.

I have a stutter. I use word replacement all the time to avoid words which I have trouble with. Most of the time this goes unnoticed but at least once a day I will get a little chuckle off someone because they think I've used the wrong word in a sentence.

The new Canadian law this thread is about would make it illegal for me to try and speak fluently using the techniques I have learnt over the last 40 years. The exact pronoun someone wants to be refered to is of very little importance to me when trying to form a sentence in my head I can actually say.

How about a little empathy the other way? Just because you were born with the ability to speak fluently doesn't mean you should be able to force these new complex language subtleties on to others. Why make me a criminal because you are one of the privileged majority? To do it in the name of protecting minorities is even more bizarre.

Good point, I'd like to think that anyone with half a brain would agree with you. As Shuvi said, everyone's got their own stuff to deal with.

I'd have done anything for my old boss who had a stutter. I'm a shy speaker in groups and he inspired me to be more confident. I never told him that, so maybe you have inspired someone somewhere.

Despite the above, I'll admit to biting my lip on occasion. Usually everything was fine apart from when he got stuck on an 's' once and started hissing like an angry snake at someone down the phone. I had to turn away

[ClockworkCupcake]

Well this all seems rather reasoned, sensible and tolerant. I've just had to double check that this thread hasn't been moved out of "News, Politics & Economics".

[Goaty Bill 2]

8.4L 154 said:

Scary stuff

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/05/19/tra...

Highlights the need for equality laws like C-16 though, when some would have you believe its all about policing pronouns.

re: the article
It beggars belief that people can be this angry, cruel and in some cases physically violent over such petty issues.


There is to my knowledge no one of any sense, opposing C-16 in it's totality or it's stated overall intent; to explicitly identify transgender people as a group, in a similar fashion to explicitly identifying sex, sexuality, race, and religion, and to explicitly include it in the list of 'hate crimes'.

Anyone opposing the stated intent of the bill in it's entirety is likely either desperately ill informed, or an outright bigot.

However, it should be noted that the current Canadian Human Rights Act is already sufficiently broad to protect all citizens and has been successfully used to prosecute transgender motivated discrimination. All that is lacking legally is the 'hate crime' element which it seems can be difficult to prove in many cases.

It would be highly disingenuous to suggest that transgender people are under any special threat in Canada for lack of a specific legislation. The Canadian Minister of Justice has herself said the Bill C-16 is mainly symbolic and to send the message that transgender rights are protected equally with sex, sexuality, race, and religion etc.
(I haven't researched a reference for that statement as it was quoted multiple times in Senate committee hearings (link provided above) and went unchallenged on each occasion, so I presume it to be substantively factual).

The pronoun issue arose some months back when someone noted that if you were to follow the trail from C-16 to the Ministry of Justice website, and the link there to the Ontario Human Rights commission website which contained the definitions that provinces were expected to use as the basis for their individual human rights legislation, that refusal to acknowledge/accept a person's fashion choices, or desire to be called by specific pronouns would be considered a breach of the act, and therefore a hate crime.

The link from the Ministry of Justice website was taken down December/January.
I foresaw this, and took physical copies of the bill, the MoJ page and link, and the relevant Ontario Human Rights commission page.

The refusal on the part of the government and the House of Commons generally, and the Senate generally to consider amendments to the bill to explicitly deny transgender people the special and unique right to demand specific speech of others has many people concerned. A number of law professors have offered very simple amendment examples that they believe will cover this.

It is worth noting as well that many transgender activists protest in such a way and with slogans and signs that seem to confirm that they believe they will be able to force their speech on others under penalty of legal repercussions under C-16 for failure to do so.

The women's rights activists have wider objections (some of which have been mentioned above), and these will be much more difficult for the House of Commons and Senate to ignore.

[p2c]

Much of Peterson's arguments are taking the provisions in the bill way past the point of sense and if the same was applied to what the Canadian human rights act already protects it would show quite how fanciful they are, and you only need to look to the UK's wider reaching laws to see how such provisions will not lead to someone with a stammer being criminalised.

As far as trampling on the safety of women, again there is a lot of the "sky is falling down" and foundation less claims of danger which essentially boil down to restricting an innocent demographic from the ability to participate in society for fear of an unrelated demographic of criminals using the provisions as cover for crimes that already carry higher penalties. Again look to the UK for what is claimed will happen as a result and you wont find much evidence to support the claims, and certainly nothing outside of statistical norms and which would not have occurred anyway.

Edited by p2c on Saturday 20th May 14:10

[Goaty Bill 2]

p2c said:

Much of Peterson's arguments are taking the provisions in the bill way past the point of sense and if the same was applied to what the Canadian human rights act already protects it would show quite how fanciful they are, and you only need to look to the UK's wider reaching laws to see how such provisions will not lead to someone with a stammer being criminalised.

As far as trampling on the safety of women, again there is a lot of the "sky is falling down" and foundation less claims of danger which essentially boil down to restricting an innocent demographic from the ability to participate in society for fear of an unrelated demographic of criminals using the provisions as cover for crimes that already carry higher penalties. Again look to the UK for what is claimed will happen as a result and you wont find much evidence to support the claims, and certainly nothing outside of statistical norms and which would not have occurred anyway.

Not knowing your level of investigation into Bill C-16; have you watched the Senate committee session for which I posted the link to above?

Bill C-16 itself is quite innocuous. I certainly support in principal it's stated intent.

The Canadian Department of Justice FAQ makes this statement.

DoJ said:

Definitions of the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” have already been given by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, for example. The Commission has provided helpful discussion and examples that can offer good practical guidance. The Canadian Human Rights Commission will provide similar guidance on the meaning of these terms in the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission defines 'Gender Expression'

OHRC said:

Gender expression is how a person publicly presents their gender. This can include behaviour and outward appearance such as dress, hair, make-up, body language and voice. A person’s chosen name and pronoun are also common ways of expressing gender.

So now we have the "chosen name and pronoun" defined as part of gender expression and gender expression is specifically named and protected in the Bill. It's a stretch, but not that much of one.

Historically, when Peterson first brought this to light, there was uproar on campus. The university wrote to him twice, after seeking legal advice, warning him that he was likely breaking the law just by discussing the issue and by his objecting to the idea of forced speech.
Many people initially, and many were still saying so up until the bill passed, that there was no mention of pronouns in the bill and it was of course all nonsense and fabrication. Simple enough to say as a means of deflecting the issue if you have only looked at the bill and not provincial policies and definitions.

Another point that Peterson has made, is that the current administrators may decide to be reasonable and not allow any cases based upon the 'pronoun issue', but that it leaves the door open for provincial human rights commissions to adopt and enforce policies in the future that may well be more draconian, as the bill has provided no definitions or limits.


As for the safety of women, I have stayed away from that.
Many of those giving testimony and publicly objecting are the sort of ideologues that I can barely understand, never mind engage with, whatever value there may be in their arguments on this issue.
I wouldn't want to be a politician when the first case of a man hiding behind his 'trans rights', uses this to slip into the ladies changing rooms to take secret photos or video, and his lawyer uses this specific bill for a defence.
Women's rights groups have enormous influence over voters.
ETA - incidents have been recorded. No statistics available, but anecdotal evidence is there.

Edited by Goaty Bill 2 on Saturday 20th May 17:32

[Lance Catamaran]

Also worth pointing out that Peterson has been subject to repeated disruptive protests and attempts to stop him doing his job. It does seem that those shouting for acceptance are unwilling to show it for others



http://www.torontosun.com/2017/03/17/protesters-cr...

[p2c]

Goaty bill, you should probably pay some attention to what is actually law in the UK, Everything Peterson/you theorise about as potential consequences of the proposed Canadian law (I don't think its actually passed yet) has been in place in English law since 2010 and those feared consequences have not come to pass and the world didn't end, In fact the EqQ2010 is probably a much broader brush than C16

Likewise, someone hiding behind equality law to defend themselves committing voyeurism is not going to succeed as the voyeurism charge would stand up in its own right, the equality law is not a licence to break other laws. Likewise if someone is going to commit a serious offence, why would a minor one stop them. Additionally the alternative of enforcing birth sex toilet use actually puts male looking trans men in the ladies room therefore making it more likely a male voyeur would just use the cover of being a trans man and not actually having to put in any effort to dress up. It wouldn't solve anything and arguably make matters worse.

As for the subsequent poster about tolerance for Peterson, He has not exactly behaved in a way deserving of any, he has taken the extreme denial of trans and non binary identities and therefore has attracted the associated push back, a lot of which is from the general society rather than trans people, much like out right racism and homophobia are now fought against. Just look south to the push back on trumps Muslim ban.

[ClockworkCupcake]

p2c said:

Likewise, someone hiding behind equality law to defend themselves committing voyeurism is not going to succeed as the voyeurism charge would stand up in its own right, the equality law is not a licence to break other laws. Likewise if someone is going to commit a serious offence, why would a minor one stop them. Additionally the alternative of enforcing birth sex toilet use actually puts male looking trans men in the ladies room therefore making it more likely a male voyeur would just use the cover of being a trans man and not actually having to put in any effort to dress up. It wouldn't solve anything and arguably make matters worse.

Exactly! Well put.

It's just a specious argument to clothe bigotry in the vestments of acceptability. A transwoman being forced to use the men's toilets is in far more danger than her going into the ladies.

And anyway, what is there to see in the ladies loos anyway? Nobody is in a state of undress outside of the cubicles.

[Goaty Bill 2]

p2c said:

Goaty bill, you should probably pay some attention to what is actually law in the UK, Everything Peterson/you theorise about as potential consequences of the proposed Canadian law (I don't think its actually passed yet) has been in place in English law since 2010 and those feared consequences have not come to pass and the world didn't end, In fact the EqQ2010 is probably a much broader brush than C16

Likewise, someone hiding behind equality law to defend themselves committing voyeurism is not going to succeed as the voyeurism charge would stand up in its own right, the equality law is not a licence to break other laws. Likewise if someone is going to commit a serious offence, why would a minor one stop them. Additionally the alternative of enforcing birth sex toilet use actually puts male looking trans men in the ladies room therefore making it more likely a male voyeur would just use the cover of being a trans man and not actually having to put in any effort to dress up. It wouldn't solve anything and arguably make matters worse.

As for the subsequent poster about tolerance for Peterson, He has not exactly behaved in a way deserving of any, he has taken the extreme denial of trans and non binary identities and therefore has attracted the associated push back, a lot of which is from the general society rather than trans people, much like out right racism and homophobia are now fought against. Just look south to the push back on trumps Muslim ban.

Have you watched/listened to his testimony?
LCJC meeting no. 70, Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code - YouTube

I can find no useful links to (I presume) the Equality Act 2010 that define gender or gender expression or how they might be considered. Any help appreciated.


I was only addressing the the issues as they appear in Canada regarding the pronouns relating to free speech.
I have not offered any opinion on the issues of toilets and changing rooms aside from pointing out that the feminists in Canada seem to have a difficult time with the idea, and they have given anecdotal evidence of it causing problems. I have not looked into it personally, but I broadly agree with what you have said on that in any case.
Of course the current laws will cover that aspect regarding actual charges of voyeurism sexual assault. It would be daft to suggest otherwise, and it was not the context within which I made the statement.
I mentioned it only in the context of the political fallout given that they have made their objections publicly known.

You have some evidence I presume of Peterson's "denial of trans and non binary identities" ?

[Lance Catamaran]

Canadian DJs better avoid playing Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, since that's now transphobic


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/walk-wild-si...

[Goaty Bill 2]

Lance Catamaran said:

Canadian DJs better avoid playing Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, since that's now transphobic


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/walk-wild-si...

One for the 'political correctness gone mad' thread.

[Shuvi McTupya]

Goaty Bill 2 said:

Lance Catamaran said:

Canadian DJs better avoid playing Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, since that's now transphobic


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/walk-wild-si...

One for the 'political correctness gone mad' thread.

Surely 'Transphobic' isn't a real word?

Trans refers to lots of things!

[ClockworkCupcake]

Shuvi McTupya said:

Surely 'Transphobic' isn't a real word?

Trans refers to lots of things!

True. But then again the prefix "homo-" just means "man" but we all know what "homophobic" means and don't question that it's a real word. The same goes for "transphobic".

[Mike_Mac]

Goaty Bill 2 said:

Lance Catamaran said:

Canadian DJs better avoid playing Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, since that's now transphobic


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/walk-wild-si...

One for the 'political correctness gone mad' thread.

What Lou Reed should obviously have done, rather than using a short series of phases that scan with the music, is instead devote the entire song to a long, detailed explanation of all the process a trans person has to go through - including all the potential opportunities to be offended along the way.

In fact, lets not bother with setting it to music - that only detracts from the message.

In fact, I don't know why he bothered adding any other songs or music to the Album. I mean, it's only Transformer anyway! What he should done is just include a long monologue on Trans rights...

or maybe people could just listen to the music and stop trying to get offended on behalf of other people!

Christ - imagine what they'll have to say when they hear Relax, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

[768]

Canadians are still rolling with this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40480386

[mickytruelove]

Where did the human race go wrong. Hundreds of years of science and the fact one gender has a penis and one doesnt, hence babies are born. Feel sorry for the kid, this is only a taster of what the parents will put this child through.