The Gender Non-binary debate.
Discussion
Esceptico said:
Strange you aren’t able to comprehend basic English.
Ok, I'm going to add "supercilious" to the list, to go along with "know-it-all". 
Esceptico said:
I didn’t say intersex bodies were mutilated I said mutilating children’s bodies are born intersex by removing what is perceived at birth as the “wrong” genitalia was horrific.
in fairness, that is correct and I think 8.4L may have misinterpreted. However, that doesn't alter the fact that you have used some pretty insulting and dehumanising language about trans people, and talk about us as a medical curiosity / abnormality, rather than as real people. You also have tried to 'prove' that we are not deserving of our chosen gender, and should not have the rights and protections that go with it.
Esceptico said:
The fact that you have managed to turn that around 180 degrees says a lot about you and your approach to posters who you don’t agree with.
The fact that you immediately assumed it was malicious, rather than a misunderstanding, says a lot about you. Esceptico said:
8.4L 154 said:
Yeah strange how they think referring to intersex bodies as mutilated is fine and not dehumanising in any way, but gets all upset at being called a know it all.
Strange you aren’t able to comprehend basic English. I didn’t say intersex bodies were mutilated I said mutilating children’s bodies are born intersex by removing what is perceived at birth as the “wrong” genitalia was horrific. The fact that you have managed to turn that around 180 degrees says a lot about you and your approach to posters who you don’t agree with.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.
I fail to see how "mutilating them at birth" doesn't also result in a mutilated body.ETA.
I don't think this kind of language used by people outside of the intersex community is helpful to intersex people , it is also language that has been used to describe trans bodies and we had several pages argument about that previously.
Edited by 8.4L 154 on Saturday 5th December 20:02
8.4L 154 said:
I fail to see how "mutilating them at birth" doesn't also result in a mutilated body.
In fairness, it's an ambiguous statement and could be taken to mean that they are mutilated into conforming to one or other gender binary. Which is sadly true, and something which I hope everyone can condemn. Clockwork Cupcake said:
In fairness, it's an ambiguous statement and could be taken to mean that they are mutilated into conforming to one or other gender binary. Which is sadly true, and something which I hope everyone can condemn.
CC see my edit, but Oh I absolutely condemn infant intersex surgery where there is not threat to life or absolute clinical need. If intersex people choose to use such language to make their point in the most forceful way then I also support that, but for people outside of the intersex community to use it to make their point is demeaning and dehumanising of intersex people and their bodies.
8.4L 154 said:
I'm not self proclaimed I'm a polymath" my wife said it" Yeah, that makes your assertion so much more respectable.So far you have shown yourself to know little about
1) Biology - Many of the traits you listed as defining a woman are shared by trans women -
2) Statistics. - the incidence of Intersex people is far higher than your "very rare 0.02%" Its more like 1-2% which is a higher incidence than trans people but not by much.
3) Law. You 1984 interpretation of law around Self ID is far from what the actual law say, you can think what you like about people sex, Harassment is however a crime no matter how you choose to target your victim.
4) trans people, nuff said
. .
2) where is your evidence is 1%-2%. I googled and it came up with 0.02%. At 1% to 2% I should have met lots of intersex people in my life but haven’t to my knowledge.
3) Possibly. My understanding is that if I used pronouns associated with their biological sex rather than their chosen sex that would be treated as harassment. Or if I told a trans woman that they are not a woman. Certainly I believe I would be disciplined at work. Not that I would do such a thing just as I don’t tell my religious friends that their gods don’t exist. But I do have the right to do so and that isn’t treated as harassment. Beyond what is legal one also has to look at what is happening in society where people (like J K Rowlings) are being publicly vilified for saying the same thing.
Esceptico said:
Possibly. My understanding is that if I used pronouns associated with their biological sex rather than their chosen sex that would be treated as harassment. Or if I told a trans woman that they are not a woman. Certainly I believe I would be disciplined at work. Not that I would do such a thing
You'd never do such a thing? You have done both of those things on this thread. The latter one repeatedly. 8.4L 154 said:
Esceptico said:
8.4L 154 said:
Yeah strange how they think referring to intersex bodies as mutilated is fine and not dehumanising in any way, but gets all upset at being called a know it all.
Strange you aren’t able to comprehend basic English. I didn’t say intersex bodies were mutilated I said mutilating children’s bodies are born intersex by removing what is perceived at birth as the “wrong” genitalia was horrific. The fact that you have managed to turn that around 180 degrees says a lot about you and your approach to posters who you don’t agree with.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.
I fail to see how "mutilating them at birth" doesn't also result in a mutilated body.ETA.
I don't think this kind of language used by people outside of the intersex community is helpful to intersex people , it is also language that has been used to describe trans bodies and we had several pages argument about that previously.
Edited by 8.4L 154 on Saturday 5th December 20:02
Esceptico said:
1) - which ones? Typical for the trans posters on here that you make a statement with no back up. What do trans women share biologically with women that only women have (ie not things that all men and women have)? If you look at a typical biology textbook with a picture of a man and woman with the bits that are different - vagina, womb, ovaries, breasts, fat distribution, hair on the face, Adam’s apple body shape - which of those (before surgery or hormone treatment) does the average trans woman have?
Some men have bigger moobs than a flat-chested woman. Some Indian women have facial hair.
Some women are born barren.
Some women can look very butch and muscular.
There is no list of characteristics that define a woman that you can come up with that successfully excludes all trans women without excluding some cis women too. People have tried very hard to and so far failed.
But, to top it all, you said earlier that you agree that gender is a social construct and yet you are fixated on "proving" that trans women are not women by means of cod science that concentrates on physical characteristics.
Edited by Clockwork Cupcake on Saturday 5th December 20:20
Clockwork Cupcake said:
You'd never do such a thing? You have done both of those things on this thread. The latter one repeatedly.
I don’t know you. You are some random person on the internet with whom I’m having a discussion, or at least trying to. If we met face to face I would be polite and respect your wishes to be called “her” as I genuinely wouldn’t want to upset you. Your outward appearance would not be of importance and whether we became friends (unlikely as that might sound) would have nothing to do with you being trans. Esceptico said:
I don’t know you. You are some random person on the internet with whom I’m having a discussion, or at least trying to. If we met face to face I would be polite and respect your wishes to be called “her” as I genuinely wouldn’t want to upset you. Your outward appearance would not be of importance and whether we became friends (unlikely as that might sound) would have nothing to do with you being trans.
But it's ok to do it from behind a computer screen on an internet forum?Anyway this has very little to do with trans and non binary people, nor anything much about Tuesday's court case which sets a horrifying precedent for undermining Gillick competence and a gift handed to a man who is determined to overturn it for abortion and has indicated intent to use the same arguments to achieve such.
Not to mention the premise of the decision could be used to overturn adolescent consent to a whole range of medical treatments and procedures, not least of which is the Covid 19 Vaccine. If puberty blockers are two experimental to give informed consent to then a drug which wasn't even in existence or even known to be needed less than 10 months ago most certainly fits the experimental criteria far more than one which has been used off label for suppressing puberty in trans kids for 30 years and is actually licenced for the same purpose in precautious puberty.
Or does it deal with the cisnormative approach to trans healthcare, when the regret of one person who would never have been covered by the judgement they sought (they were 16 when prescribed PB's so outside of the meat of the ruling) is placed above the actual harm now being done to trans adolescents. Since the judgement on Tuesday there is already one reliable indication of an attempted suicide, there are kid's who have spent three years attending assessment's and who had endo appointments next week having them cancelled, there are kids who have this week had prescriptions withheld for their ongoing treatment plan. there are 160 trans kids having their treatment plan ripped out from underneath them with no thought to their safety, withdrawal or ongoing care, there are a further 5000 kids who now are looking at little hope of preventing permanent changes which will lead to inevitable painful surgery's, costly and painful additional treatments, all because trans healthcare sees cis as the ideal outcome, because the legal system sees cis as the ideal outcome, a system that does everything it can to protect that one cis person, that does everything it can to ensure cis conformity is the preferred outcome.
Not to mention the premise of the decision could be used to overturn adolescent consent to a whole range of medical treatments and procedures, not least of which is the Covid 19 Vaccine. If puberty blockers are two experimental to give informed consent to then a drug which wasn't even in existence or even known to be needed less than 10 months ago most certainly fits the experimental criteria far more than one which has been used off label for suppressing puberty in trans kids for 30 years and is actually licenced for the same purpose in precautious puberty.
Or does it deal with the cisnormative approach to trans healthcare, when the regret of one person who would never have been covered by the judgement they sought (they were 16 when prescribed PB's so outside of the meat of the ruling) is placed above the actual harm now being done to trans adolescents. Since the judgement on Tuesday there is already one reliable indication of an attempted suicide, there are kid's who have spent three years attending assessment's and who had endo appointments next week having them cancelled, there are kids who have this week had prescriptions withheld for their ongoing treatment plan. there are 160 trans kids having their treatment plan ripped out from underneath them with no thought to their safety, withdrawal or ongoing care, there are a further 5000 kids who now are looking at little hope of preventing permanent changes which will lead to inevitable painful surgery's, costly and painful additional treatments, all because trans healthcare sees cis as the ideal outcome, because the legal system sees cis as the ideal outcome, a system that does everything it can to protect that one cis person, that does everything it can to ensure cis conformity is the preferred outcome.
Clockwork Cupcake said:
Some men have bigger moobs than a flat-chested woman.
Some Indian women have facial hair.
Some women are born barren.
Some women can look very butch and muscular.
There is no list of characteristics that define a woman that you can come up with that successfully excludes all trans women without excluding some cis women too. People have tried very hard to and so far failed.
But, to top it all, you said earlier that you agree that gender is a social construct and yet you are fixated on "proving" that trans women are not women by means of cod science that concentrates on physical characteristics.
This is clearly a pointless debate as similar to talking to religious people or many others where the point discussed is of such importance to them that all objectively flies out of the window. Some Indian women have facial hair.
Some women are born barren.
Some women can look very butch and muscular.
There is no list of characteristics that define a woman that you can come up with that successfully excludes all trans women without excluding some cis women too. People have tried very hard to and so far failed.
But, to top it all, you said earlier that you agree that gender is a social construct and yet you are fixated on "proving" that trans women are not women by means of cod science that concentrates on physical characteristics.
Edited by Clockwork Cupcake on Saturday 5th December 20:20
Looking around me I can see a dinning table and I’m sitting on my sofa. Sofas and tables are both pieces of furniture but they are not the same. If I listed the attributes of the table - certain height, used for eating food, made of wood or similar, has legs and then did the same for the sofa - made for sitting in, made of wood, cloth and feathers, height to allow sitting comfortably. Using your logic, because my sofa has feet and a table has feet then my sofa is now a table!
Yes you can point to some minor features off my list that a trans woman has in common but if you look at my list and have the for men ie penis, testicles, facial hair, body shape, Adam’s apple, fat distribution etc then take a pre transition trans person and put ticks against the two lists and come up with 8 ticks against the man’s list and two against the women’s list an objective person would clearly classify that person as a man, not a woman. Of course there are intersex people who really do have a mix eg a womb but also penis and testicles. In such very rare cases I can see difficulties. Again, my understanding is that most trans people are not in that category.
Gender is a social construct based on the biological sexes ie being of the female gender is an extension of being biologically a woman. At least that was how it was discussed when gender became a topic in the social sciences in the 70s and 80s.
Clockwork Cupcake said:
But it's ok to do it from behind a computer screen on an internet forum?
Have I actually insulted you for being trans? By mistake I did use male pronouns once but I apologised. Have I ever written that I don’t value you as a person? That I support discrimination against you? Don’t think you have the right to dress or think of yourself as a woman?
If I were to tell a religious person that I don’t accept their god is real I would not mean that as an insult (even if they thought it was or tried to kill me for saying so).
Part of the point (for me) of such anonymous forums is that you can discuss things that social conventions would stop you doing in real life.
Esceptico said:
1) - which ones? Typical for the trans posters on here that you make a statement with no back up. What do trans women share biologically with women that only women have (ie not things that all men and women have)? If you look at a typical biology textbook with a picture of a man and woman with the bits that are different - vagina, womb, ovaries, breasts, fat distribution, hair on the face, Adam’s apple body shape - which of those (before surgery or hormone treatment) does the average trans woman have?
2) where is your evidence is 1%-2%. I googled and it came up with 0.02%. At 1% to 2% I should have met lots of intersex people in my life but haven’t to my knowledge.
3) Possibly. My understanding is that if I used pronouns associated with their biological sex rather than their chosen sex that would be treated as harassment. Or if I told a trans woman that they are not a woman. Certainly I believe I would be disciplined at work. Not that I would do such a thing just as I don’t tell my religious friends that their gods don’t exist. But I do have the right to do so and that isn’t treated as harassment. Beyond what is legal one also has to look at what is happening in society where people (like J K Rowlings) are being publicly vilified for saying the same thing.
1) nice goalpost shifting specifying pre hormones and surgery, so apparently you do know that hormones will cause breasts to grow, body fat to be deposited in female typical locations and with body shapes within the range of female body shapes (very ill defined) , body scent and sense of smell to change inline with females, Facial hair can be removed, Adams apple shaved/reduced and a whole raft of other surgery's that enable trans women to meet your somewhat vain definition, and that's before early interventions preventing many male characteristics developing (now banned) and none of that makes a pre-transition trans women any less valid.2) where is your evidence is 1%-2%. I googled and it came up with 0.02%. At 1% to 2% I should have met lots of intersex people in my life but haven’t to my knowledge.
3) Possibly. My understanding is that if I used pronouns associated with their biological sex rather than their chosen sex that would be treated as harassment. Or if I told a trans woman that they are not a woman. Certainly I believe I would be disciplined at work. Not that I would do such a thing just as I don’t tell my religious friends that their gods don’t exist. But I do have the right to do so and that isn’t treated as harassment. Beyond what is legal one also has to look at what is happening in society where people (like J K Rowlings) are being publicly vilified for saying the same thing.
2) maybe you should have read the first google result or to the bottom of the 2nd
Intersex society of the US said:
Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female one in 100 births
https://isna.org/faq/frequency/3) I have news for you, if you tell your religious co-worker their god doesn't exist and do it on a regular basis in the same way that it sounds like you think you should be able to misgender a trans person then that would also be considered harassment, would likely get you disciplined and may also be illegal, so, no its not any different and trans people are not treated in anyway more favourably in law.. In actual fact religion has far greater hate crime protection than trans people do.
Esceptico said:
This is clearly a pointless debate as similar to talking to religious people or many others where the point discussed is of such importance to them that all objectively flies out of the window.
Well, at least we can agree on something. 
Only, to be absolutely clear, you're the aggressor here.
Esceptico said:
Part of the point (for me) of such anonymous forums is that you can discuss things that social conventions would stop you doing in real life.
I have no words to reply to this. Other than that, in that case, I think you are an utter ****. Obviously I wouldn't say that to your face as I am too polite. But it's ok on an anonymous internet forum where social conventions don't apply, right?
BTW, an internet forum *is* real life. Real people. Real emotions. I'm not some NPC on a computer game - I am a real person.
Clockwork Cupcake said:
Esceptico said:
Part of the point (for me) of such anonymous forums is that you can discuss things that social conventions would stop you doing in real life.
I have no words to reply to this. Other than that, in that case, I think you are an utter ****. Obviously I wouldn't say that to your face as I am too polite. But it's ok on an anonymous internet forum where social conventions don't apply, right?
BTW, an internet forum *is* real life. Real people. Real emotions. I'm not some NPC on a computer game - I am a real person.
Clockwork Cupcake said:
I have no words to reply to this. Other than that, in that case, I think you are an utter ****.
Obviously I wouldn't say that to your face as I am too polite. But it's ok on an anonymous internet forum where social conventions don't apply, right?
BTW, an internet forum *is* real life. Real people. Real emotions. I'm not some NPC on a computer game - I am a real person.
Internet forum is real life but still different from face to face. You have already insulted me many times and been passive aggressive, dismissive or otherwise rude in responses that you might not have done if we had been sat at the dinner table talking. If you are actually hurt by stuff said on forums, for your own mental well-being you should perhaps avoid them. PH in is a pretty toxic environment, particularly NP&E. Obviously I wouldn't say that to your face as I am too polite. But it's ok on an anonymous internet forum where social conventions don't apply, right?
BTW, an internet forum *is* real life. Real people. Real emotions. I'm not some NPC on a computer game - I am a real person.
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