Carleas wrote:Most uses of "man" and "woman" aren't statements about chromosomes. They aren't statements about genitals. They aren't statements about sexuality or reproductive usefulness or about anything biological.
Carleas wrote:Siri and a woman on the phone are both taken to be women because they literally have the voice of biological women
We know how to misinterpret that to make the statement false, and we know how to interpret it to make it true. Can the same be done with woman? We can do it with Siri. Is there no way to interpret "She is a woman" in a way that makes it true as applied to Caitlyn Jenner?
Mad Man P wrote:Because that's the only context in which gender has a literal meaning.
Mad Man P wrote:We don't interpret what people say so that they make sense, we try to infer their intended meaning from context.
Carleas wrote:Social sex is not the same as biological sex
the intended meaning of a transman who communicates that he's a man is pretty clearly not "I am a man in the same sense in which botanists consider certain trees male". There are other senses of "man" that correspond to the social signaling of sex, that communicate mutual expectations about behavior and treatment, and that just aren't about genitals or chromosomes or trees.
Carleas wrote:Humans have human-like voices, not lion-like voices. It seems like to call a human a lion, you're asking for a single metaphorically-plausible lion-like attribute, and to call a man a woman you need 100% of all attributes to be literally biologically female.
I don't think this follows exactly, but I take your point: if we expand the scope of "man" and "woman", people who don't want to be classified as men and women may be inadvertently mislabeled. Two problems would be that this could do whatever harm to those mislabeled individuals that we're concerned is currently being done to transmen and transwomen, and, following Karpel Tunnel's arguments, it could incentivize closer adherence to traditional gender norms.
First, I think we should give nearly dispositive weight to a person's clearly expressed preference. Most people make efforts to communicate their intended social sex, they are generally successful, and we should assume that they are the local expert on the matter.
Second, there are already cases where social sex is just ambiguous, and people do OK with figuring it out. It's also often possible to avoid any social sex-dependent behavior pending more information, or even indefinitely if the ambiguity persists.
And third, most people who are social sexually ambiguous are likely to be aware of it, and are not likely to be particularly offended if you get it wrong (further, those that do get offended by reasonable mistakes are likely to be easily offended anyway, so the difference from baseline in terms of harm due to offense is low).
This strikes me as an edge case to an edge case, but the absolute numbers of butch women vs transmen do make it possible that we would do more harm than good. But for the reasons I give, I find it unlikely.
WendyDarling wrote:
Transwomen dont want to be classified as womanlike but as actual literal women
I once watched a film on industrial food creation. Like they were trying to come up with a food to sell at seven 11s and other, something you can eat while driving. I can't remember any details, except these scientists and food managers were brainstorming texture, ingredients flavor etc. and I turned tot he person next to me and asked if this was a spoof. It was so surreal. And now we have gm foods and plastic surgery as the norm, so it shouldn't be a surprise that now everything else will be up for grabs as the utter deadness of physicalism takes over the world.Gloominary wrote:Is plastic food, real food, as long as it can pass for real food, or we're not eating it?
Gloominary wrote:
By extension we should call a butchy biological woman a man even if it offends her is everyone comfortable with that
No, obviously. In fact I wish we were pretty loose about what a woman or a man can do and still be considered a healthy/moral version of their sex. In the old way of doing things we had ideas about the differences, and there was certainly some truth in it, but then we would literally beat the qualities out of the child/teenager, if necessary, to make those children fit the models. I am glad that shifted and feminism did help with that. That doesn't mean there were or are no problems with feminism or even the parallel stretching of what it is to be a man by men and male centered approaches. The way the word fag gets using in school is a kind of crossection of how we were long battered into what our natures supposedly were.Gloominary wrote:Firstly, if a person's femininity is more salient one moment, and their masculinity the next, does that mean we should alternate what (pro)nouns we're using to define them from moment to moment?
Gloominary wrote:
Firstly if a persons femininity is more salient one moment and their masculinity the next does that mean we should alternate what pronouns
we are using to define them from moment to moment
Mad Man P wrote:"Social sex" just means "The social treatment of a given sex" which becomes meaningless if that social treatment is no longer conditional on the person ACTUAL sex... then it's just a social treatment.
Mad Man P wrote:Society decides how they treat people of a given sex or hair color or whatever other REAL characteristic we decide warrants a distinct "social" treatment.
Mad Man P wrote:Yeah... that's why you felt the need to say "transman" and not just "a man"
That's why we have a word for that already... you know, a biological WOMAN who would like to be a man...
Mad Man P wrote:The discussion ought to be about WHAT treatment being trans warrants... Not whether or not they are REAL men or REAL women, because they are not and that's their fucking problem to begin with.
Mad Man P wrote:We're going in circles dude
WendyDarling wrote:...literal women
Gloominary wrote:Firstly, if a person's femininity is more salient one moment, and their masculinity the next, does that mean we should alternate what (pro)nouns we're using to define them from moment to moment?
Gloominary wrote:By calling a masculine transwoman a woman, you're lying to them, yourself and everyone around you about what abilities and characteristics they have
Gloominary wrote:And if we do come across someone who's about equally saliently masculine and feminine, does that mean we should use agender (pro)nouns to define them, regardless of how they wish to be defined, if we're to remain objective?
Gloominary wrote:Is plastic food, real food, as long as it can pass for real food, or we're not eating it?
surreptitious75 wrote:Reducing these four categories to two blurs the distinction between biological and trans
Carleas wrote:But my point is that we have cases where the social treatment is no longer conditional on actual sex, e.g. digital assistants.
You and me, we are society, and if enough people like us decide to treat someone a certain way, then society decides to treat someone that way.
Simply saying "man" or "woman" would be ambiguous.
Mad Man P wrote:We don't treat them like humans, much less a given sex of human... you are conflating "social treatment" with the use of male or female pronouns.
Mad Man P wrote:Exactly right... we don't "self-determine" the treatment we receive from others we only determine the treatment we give others.
Mad Man P wrote:Carleas wrote:Simply saying "man" or "woman" would be ambiguous.
Not the way I would like to use language, then it's not ambiguous at all... the way you would like us to use language would make it ambiguous.
Carleas wrote:Both [i.e. "transman" and "biological woman"] add precision where, in context, simply saying "man" or "woman" would be ambiguous.
Carleas wrote:We let people tell us if they're Christian or Muslim, and we don't interrogate that to see if they're 'really' Christian or Muslim (unless it becomes relevant, which it usually isn't).
We both used more precise language than just saying "man" or "woman", because, in this conext the terms are ambiguous.
Carleas wrote:And so we let people tell us if they're Christian or Muslim, and we don't interrogate that to see if they're 'really' Christian or Muslim (unless it becomes relevant, which it usually isn't).
So, in other words, other people must consider the issue not relevent, but the transperson founds their transpersonness on the utter importance of the distinction.We let people tell us if they're communists or capitalists, and we don't interrogate that (with the same caveat). We let people tell us if they're gay or strait, and we take them at their word almost all the time, because almost all the time it's not relevant.
Why can't I then wish to be called doctor, even if I am not. It doesn't matter, as long as I don't operate or practice medicine. What do we do with the man who does not even make an effort to be feminine (whatever that means) and wants into women's clubs, women's swimming hours, who wants to join a meeting for battered women, who wants to use the women's showers? Do we challenge him or her because she isn't feminine enough to be a woman? or to be someone who thinks of themselves as a woman?Moreover, if you take something like religion, which is self-determined, it could be seen as offensive to refuse to call a priest in a collar "Father", or a nun in full regalia "sister". Those are self-determined, they entail the use of special pronouns, and it's seen as offensive not to grant that to people. Similarly, we have an intersubjective standard of who counts as a "doctor", and it's seen as offensive to call a "Dr.", "Mr." or "Ms.". These aren't delusions, they aren't biological, they can be self-determined, and they dictate special pronouns that it's offensive to omit.
It all sounds so kind and loving and fair, but it strikes me as a circus as in bread and circuses.
Mad Man P wrote:if someone said to you "I'm a christian but I don't believe that Jesus had anything of value to say nor that he ever existed and I also don't believe the bible is at all a relevant book"
You wouldn't say "you're not a real christian" ?
Mad Man P wrote:You misunderstood my intent... I was pointing out that we are not limited to our pre-existing words like man or woman in order to describe someone who is a man but behaves and dresses like a woman.
Mad Man P wrote:Trans people want to be a gender they are not... presumably, devoid of social contact, if they were alone on an island this would still be true.
The request that we address them as men or women is because they want to approximate that preferred reality... not because gender is hard to define or primarily a social treatment or any such nonsense.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:Though we might very well call them out on behavior, utterances that seemed to contradict their claim. If I saw a Muslim drinking, A christian being cruel to a homeless person, whatever. The claim is not something I feel obliged to accept regardless.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:Now I will call people what they want to be called, but I don't think it should be immoral or punishable to do otherwise.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:So, in other words, other people must consider the issue not relevent, but the transperson founds their transpersonness on the utter importance of the distinction.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:Why can't I then wish to be called doctor, even if I am not. It doesn't matter, as long as I don't operate or practice medicine. What do we do with the man who does not even make an effort to be feminine (whatever that means) and wants into women's clubs, women's swimming hours, who wants to join a meeting for battered women, who wants to use the women's showers? Do we challenge him or her because she isn't feminine enough to be a woman? or to be someone who thinks of themselves as a woman?
Karpel Tunnel wrote:And why is it around sex and sexuality [...] Why is this the norm criticism that must be changed now and so fast?
Karpel Tunnel wrote:
The question it seems to me is not whether they should be allowed to think of themselves as or call themselves the sex they think they are . Freedom of speech
and thought should cover that . It seems to me too much to demand that others must recognize their sense of what they are . That should be covered by the same freedoms . But it is not - legislation company rules policies are being handed down to where you cannot question this even if it is relevant . Cant we consider people different from what they think they are
Karpel Tunnel wrote:Age and race could also then be self-identified.
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