So apart from private clubs and organizations, transgender recognition really seems to be standard, at least for those who are SRS post-op.
Just a side note, my particular interest in transgender acceptance issues comes from my exposure to disability rights issues which have a lot of parallel principles to gay rights and transgender rights. "A seat at the table".
@Teia: from a legal or rules-based inclusion standpoint (apart from individual bigotry and lack of acceptance, language), what are the current areas that you feel remain the most significantly "transgender-unfriendly" ?
And if evidence arose that there was more to being a dog than we thought, we should amend the definition accordingly, not stick our heads in the sand and say, "Eh, science says one thing, but tradition says another, so we'll go with tradition."
It is categorically impossible for science to say anything like "there is more to being a dog than we thought". To be a dog is no more and no less than to be what we think is a dog - or to be more precise, to have the properties that we think are essential to doghood. Science does not and cannot tell us how to define terms. It can tell us interesting things about dogs, but no discovery it could possibly make could say, "Okay, folks, the category 'dog' has the wrong intension, time to change it", because the category is created arbitrarily by the language community.
Now, sometimes new scientific discoveries can move particular objects into and out of defined categories. For instance, the sun was at first considered one of the planets, and only later discovered to be a star. But it could only do this because we had a received consensus definition of what a "planet" is, and it was discovered that the sun didn't actually have the planet-ish properties it seemed to have - to be specific, what seemed to be its celestial "wandering" was actually the Earth's wandering. Furthermore, science can refine our understanding of where the properties we use to define things come from. It can discover that the planets' "wandering" in the sky is caused by orbital motion, that this motion is elliptical, that it's caused by the gravitational force, and so on. But it can't discover that a category has been defined wrongly. Scientists did not discover that planets have to have "cleared their neighborhoods" (thus rendering Pluto a non-planet); they decided that planets have to have "cleared their neighborhoods" - a decision that was, like all matters of linguistic usage, made by consensus and arbitrary with respect to the facts.
This is definitely the case with "female." For a long time it was defined one way, and now modern scientific understanding shows the old definitions are inadequate. We're talking about definitions that already reference relatively modern science (such as with chromosomes, etc), which means that they did update to include that, and my argument here is that they should update again given more modern information.
As a matter of linguistic usage, I'm skeptical that they actually did update the definition to be strictly chromosomal - as you yourself are so fond of pointing out, everybody thinks of people with CAIS as women. But whether they did or didn't update the definition is irrelevant to the question of whether they should. Because there is no "should" here. If they updated the definition, that was an arbitrary consensus; and if they didn't, that too was an arbitrary consensus; and if they update it again, that will be an arbitrary consensus; and if they don't, that too will be an arbitrary consensus; and there is no possible scientific fact that can entail that one update should or should not happen or that one definition is or is not better than the other.
Even without that, you could have pointed out that it's fairly common within the trans* community. Either way, it's still a much more relevant and useful argument than the clinical lycanthropy thing (which seems mainly to exist for the purpose of ridiculing trans* identities).
First of all, it's not ridicule, it's a perfectly civil parallelism attempt. Second, even if it were ridicule, your complaining that it was would not refute it in any way. Ridicule can very well contain sound arguments. See: all satire ever.
But getting back on subject, I did say way back when that if you found an alternative parallel, I'd use it, and you have, so I will.
I know you want a one-word "yes" or "no" answer, but no one should really be surprised that my answer is the far more ambiguous "it depends." In a nutshell, if the identity is representative of female encephalic sex, then yes, anyone who identifies as female is female.
But you say that in your childhood you did not identify as female, so either (a) you were not female as a child; or (b) you were female despite not identifying as such, and female identity is not a "truly all-encompassing trait". Furthermore, you've defined female encephalic sex as being dependent on female identity, so you did not have a female encephalic sex in your childhood.
"Split hairs"? Cling to straws, more like. You know how you keep saying people "lack experience/education/etc." about trans issues? You lack experience/education/etc. about linguistics. And I neither have the time to, nor see the value in, getting into the technicalities at play here when you can't even seem to grasp the basics.
Can I do that? Blow you off that way? (This is to illustrate a point, of course, but I really don't want to go any further into the semantics of metaphor - not because it's over your head, but because it's getting really tangential.)
I already brought up with BS that one can make sincere errors about their own identity, such as with closeted trans people, but such arguments get bypassed in favour of the flashier dehumanizing ones. I think it's actually quite telling on the part of those making the clinical lycanthropy argument.
And I think it's quite telling on your part that you insinuate those who disagree with you have malicious intent. I mean, come on, you can't even do it right. The only way that the comparison to lycanthropy is dehumanizing is if you think lycanthropes aren't human. That conclusion is only arrived at by extrapolating from your statements about identity, and the next step in the argument is to point out that that conclusion is absurd. In other words: the only reason people are using the lycanthrope argument is because they think lycanthropes are human.
So save the victim card for when you're actually being victimized, O Boy Who Cries Wolf. (And in case you're confused: the boy, who is you in this metaphor, is human.)
The argument "If I identify as X, then I am X. I identify as a woman, therefore I am a woman." is provably unsound. An obvious counterexample would be someone who identifies as God, or the smartest person in the world.
Prove that being a deity is at all comparable to being a woman.
it's not impossible for a human brain to have the 'body map' of a wolf (or at least this would have to be shown in order for this argument to work)
So show that it's possible for a human to have the body map of a wolf.
Also, if I were to reason "Nobody who speaks german can be an evil man. I speak german, therefore I am not an evil man." and someone points out that Hitler is an obvious counterexample, the only way I am being compared to Hitler is in the sense that he also spoke german. It would not be an attempt to dehumanize me, it would just show that my reasoning was flawed. So grow up and learn to come up with better arguments.
Godwin's Law aside, that example has nothing to do with this debate.
Also, some people have already married themselves, their pillows and yes, even their dogs.
What's your point, and how does it relate to the slippery slope I mentioned?
The first bit remains true. Though I said, hurt feelings. Not harm. But, you don't really care what it is I said, do you. lol.
To be blunt, it takes a lot more than anyone on this forum is capable of doing to me in order to harm me. That aside, anyone who tries to tell trans people that we exaggerate the level of oppression we face (ostensibly on the grounds that they, as cis people, don't see this so it must not exist) is part of the problem in terms of trans oppression whether they think they are or not.
@Teia: from a legal or rules-based inclusion standpoint (apart from individual bigotry and lack of acceptance, language), what are the current areas that you feel remain the most significantly "transgender-unfriendly" ?
That's an impressively broad category you've handed me there. I honestly wouldn't know where to begin, so for the moment I'll just leave it with something you said: Recognition is relatively fine if you're post-op, and on some levels, yes, it's better than if you're pre-op, but even so, it's still nightmarish and also even worse if you're pre-op. The fact that cis people place far, far greater emphasis on op status than trans people doesn't help matters.
Scientists did not discover that planets have to have "cleared their neighborhoods" (thus rendering Pluto a non-planet); they decided that planets have to have "cleared their neighborhoods" - a decision that was, like all matters of linguistic usage, made by consensus and arbitrary with respect to the facts.
The facts as they stand being merely what's physically there in the solar system. Likewise, the majority of women being XX is fact, but "female means XX chromosomes" is utterly arbitrary and not inherently objective (no more objective than "female means having a ******" or "female means having breasts" or "female means being no taller than this"). Thus when we find ourselves saying people who aren't XX are female, and something's gotta give, do we say those non-XX women aren't female, or do we acknowledge that "female" needs to be somewhat broader?
As a matter of linguistic usage, I'm skeptical that they actually did update the definition to be strictly chromosomal - as you yourself are so fond of pointing out, everybody thinks of people with CAIS as women.
In terms of everyday usage, chromosomes don't matter in the slightest. In terms of the dictionary definitions certain people cling to, however, chromosomes seem the determining factor.
You know, I had the thought that the dictionary saying "female means XX chromosomes" can be thought of as akin to the simplifications you argued with me about. Most females have XX chromosomes, and for the sake of brevity the dictionary simply puts things in generalized, concise terms, which people read and interpret in a downright dogmatic way, missing the reality that real-life sex determination isn't actually so simplistic.
First of all, it's not ridicule, it's a perfectly civil parallelism attempt. Second, even if it were ridicule, your complaining that it was would not refute it in any way. Ridicule can very well contain sound arguments. See: all satire ever.
If my statement that certain people are ignorant of trans issues and that this isn't a subject one can simply pick up instantly is "disparaging other posters' intelligence," then the clinical lycanthropy argument is absolutely the ridicule I called it. And for that matter, "you lack experience/education/etc about linguistics" would (under the same logic) be disparaging my intelligence.
(b) you were female despite not identifying as such, and female identity is not a "truly all-encompassing trait". Furthermore, you've defined female encephalic sex as being dependent on female identity, so you did not have a female encephalic sex in your childhood.
Again, you attempt to boil down identity to being nothing more than statement, when to do so is exactly the problem that leads others to believe that me saying I'm female is just as (il)legitimate as LogicX saying he's a "cistruffle" or that a clinical lycanthrope is an eagle or that someone is a deity. It's to ignore everything I've said about encephalic sex, not to mention my other arguments along these lines in this thread.
Also I did not define female encephalic sex as being dependent on female identity. That's just something you invented.
Can I do that? Blow you off that way? (This is to illustrate a point, of course, but I really don't want to go any further into the semantics of metaphor - not because it's over your head, but because it's getting really tangential.)
You know, I already have to translate others' arguments into correct terminology (e.g. people who say "real woman" instead of "cis woman"), so I don't see anything unreasonable about others doing similar when I don't use the precise, specific words they want.
And I think it's quite telling on your part that you insinuate those who disagree with you have malicious intent.
I only really called maliciousness in two cases: Dehumanization and erasure. In the dehumanization case, it stems from the fact that others leap to saying "being a trans woman is no different than being someone who thinks they're an eagle." In other words, since we're not seen as legitimately female/women/whatever, our identities are treated as being subhuman. In the erasure case, well, just imagine a white person in the 50s and 60s telling a black civil rights activist that society isn't really racist, and you'll see what I mean.
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Side note (not directed at anyone in particular), this thread is now longer than the old gender-issues thread.
Definitions are always arbitrary... this debate is getting beyond pointless.
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"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
I'm not suggesting that gender is different in the same way as species.
Transgenders feel they have the wrong body the same way as someone with clinical lycanthropy feel they have the wrong body.
So if your mind identifies as an eagle you are an eagle? You're dancing around the question, however I get the impression that you don't agree with this. Even though you haven't stated it outright, from your arguments, I suspect that you buy into Teia's hypothesis about the body map being correct.
The problem with your logic is that you said you are your mind, regardless of your body. So whatever body you have, even if its not of your same species, that's what you are.
You don't even buy into that logic, because it's that absurd. You're just making a special exception for sex, because well humans can be a certain sex.
If you don't like the example of clinical lycanthropy, what if someone white identified as being black, would they be black?
This is the same type of argument people make against gay marriage when they bring up "why stop at men marrying men, why not marry your pet, or your car?".
However, if you want a real answer to your hypothetical question, I will respond with a hypothetical answer. If you were to transplant an wolf's brain into a human body, then I would agree that that being's self is still a wolf.
I'm not sure what the mind is. It's a very intangble and abstract concept, that I'm not sure what I think it is.
Also for your claims on the mind, citations needed.
I can provide all kinds of citations if you want me to show that the physical results in the mind. Are you denying that things like injuries to the brain don't affect the mind?
No... I'm saying we observe these things as coming from the brain, not the mind. Your brain is responsible for your behaviors, your brain is responsible for your personality, and your brain is responsible for your thought process.
That's interesting, because those are things that we also bring in to what we call the human mind.
No, I'm not actually, I'm talking about these things as though they are two different concepts, because they are two different concepts.
I'm glad you brought up pain, because like the mind - pain is not a phenotype. Your brain is a phenotype and so are the nerves, but neither thought nor pain are phenotypes.
Actually, how your process pain would be a phenotype. Your mind is absolutely a phenotype, unless you'd like to argue that the mind has non-physical (i.e. supernatural) causes.
The Brain and the mind are not the same thing, they are two different concepts. One is tangible and observable (the brain), the other is not (the mind).
The more you say things like this, the more I'm getting a sense that you're arguing for a supernatural mind.
The argument "We shouldn't make rules to prevent people from getting martied if they want to." is very much vulnerable to the objection along the likes of "But then people would be allowed to marry themselves, or their parents, pets, pillows etc." because the argument uses a premise that would show too much. And if we were supposed to believe that "To identify as X" would imply "To be X" then we would have to accept that clinical lycanthropes can be eagles.
This isn't a slippery slope, it's special pleading on your part.
No, it's a poor analogy and a false equivalency on yours. Clinical lycanthropy is not the same kind of thing as trans gender.
That aside, anyone who tries to tell trans people that we exaggerate the level of oppression we face (ostensibly on the grounds that they, as cis people, don't see this so it must not exist) is part of the problem in terms of trans oppression whether they think they are or not.
Because of your weak examples. If you yourself admit your examples are not enforced, then are you not exaggerating or complaining about an issue that doesn't really exist? Or are you just finding things to whine about to support your arguments?
Our housing community has such bi-laws that you listed as one of your examples. They were written in the early 70's during period of reform. And it doesn't say "no transgender people allowed" or "no minorities allowed" or anything of the sort. It says, they "reserve the right to deny housing to anyone at their discretion."
Some 35 years later, its never been revamped. But as you yourself said, it isn't enforced. They can't. Its against the fair housing act. Even if they tried, they would find themselves in court. Nobody really cares, except for people who like to point at it once in a while, claim discrimination and use it as a case example (sound familiar?) The big reason they keep it is because the government won't fund housing to communities with such bi-laws, and we don't want them to. So even as outdated as it is, it still serves that very purpose, and removal would thus qualify the homes here for government housing.
That bi-law, and alot of others were put in place to keep the neighborhood prisitine. To keep out hillbillies with their cars up on blocks. To keep out people who clutter their porch and living areas with junk, decrepit furniture and garbage. To prevent 8 adults and 6 kids living in one home, or people with cars that are only worth 500$ but somehow have $5000 spin rims on them with and a $2000 stereo system
But to accomplish that, my neighborhood doesn't fall back on bi-laws that are 35 years old and discriminate on a case by case basis in violation of the fair housing act. Simply enough, they make it expensive enough to live there, that most of the above problems resolve themselves. This approach works extremely well, in addition to not having government funded housing. The result is a nice, beautiful and peaceful neighborhood you can be proud of.
It doesn't matter if your a racial minority or a member of the LGBT community. If you've got the money, and agree to the policies regarding housekeeping, maintenance and preserving the quality of the neighborhood, you will be welcomed here. If your the type who'd like to sit on your front porch without a shirt on, drinking beers and admiring your collection of immobile cars, thinking about your next Obama check which is already spent, while your nappy kids run rampant through your tall-grass then your going to run into issues and the neighborhood will work to oust the issue.
If a neighborhood like that isn't your scene, and you believe were a bunch of snide people who think were better than people in poorer communities, then you wouldn't want to live around us and have us for neighbors ANYWAY so whatever rules we might have don't apply to you regardless.
So yes. When you point at unenforced housing bi-laws written back in the early 70's, while the KKK was on its third breath of life and white people were just now being convicted for killing black people, I'm going to say your exaggerating those particular examples. Does it simply boil down to you "not liking" that rule still being there? It is there for a reason, just not the one you exemplified. And anyone who says your exagerating it, is one of them and part of the problem.
You could easily come back (yet again) with "I personally know trans who were denied housing for being trans" to which I'd tell you - Call a lawyer like anyone else.
But to accomplish that, my neighborhood doesn't fall back on bi-laws that are 35 years old and discriminate on a case by case basis in violation of the fair housing act. Simply enough, they make it expensive enough to live there, that most of the above problems resolve themselves. This approach works extremely well, in addition to not having government funded housing. The result is a nice, beautiful and peaceful neighborhood you can be proud of.
Can I get some clarification on this? Because right now I'm reading "Screw anybody who doesn't like living in an expensive town home." That's an alright statement to make when you're considering where you want to live, revel in your privilege all you like, but in a debate about oppression this comes across as oppressive as it gets.
It is in terms of how the brain identifies self. Remember you're arguing that if the brain identifies you as something, you are that something.
No, that's not exactly what I'm arguing. Being delusional is different from having actual anatomical characteristics determined pre-birth, either through genetics or environment, that result in a different phenotype.
Can I get some clarification on this? Because right now I'm reading "Screw anybody who doesn't like living in an expensive town home."
If you don't like living there, you don't have to? You can choose to live wherever you like so long as it suits your means. CLE area is vast. If you wanna live section 8 in the ghetto two cities over, your more than welcome to. If you want to live in a nice yuppy neighborhood, we have those too. There are systems in place to keep the neighborhood nice, and the people who chose to live here appreciate those systems. Its why we chose to live here.
The facts as they stand being merely what's physically there in the solar system. Likewise, the majority of women being XX is fact, but "female means XX chromosomes" is utterly arbitrary and not inherently objective (no more objective than "female means having a ******" or "female means having breasts" or "female means being no taller than this").
...or "female means having a female identity". You forgot that one.
Thus when we find ourselves saying people who aren't XX are female, and something's gotta give, do we say those non-XX women aren't female, or do we acknowledge that "female" needs to be somewhat broader?
It does not need to be anything. You have got to expunge your vocabulary of all these prescriptive terms like "should" and "need" if you want to talk about this issue sensibly.
But yes, if we find ourselves saying people who aren't XX are female, then this is evidence that we are not in fact using a strict chromosomal definition. That is a descriptive linguistic discovery. And you like this argument, because it undermines some of the people who disagree with you. But when I turn the form around on you, and point out that we also find ourselves saying people who don't have female identities are female, then HYPOCRITICAL RAGE!!!!1!!
You know, I had the thought that the dictionary saying "female means XX chromosomes" can be thought of as akin to the simplifications you argued with me about. Most females have XX chromosomes, and for the sake of brevity the dictionary simply puts things in generalized, concise terms, which people read and interpret in a downright dogmatic way, missing the reality that real-life sex determination isn't actually so simplistic.
Yes. Your problem is that you're saying we "should" replace it with another definition that is just as artificial and just as simplistic.
If my statement that certain people are ignorant of trans issues and that this isn't a subject one can simply pick up instantly is "disparaging other posters' intelligence," then the clinical lycanthropy argument is absolutely the ridicule I called it.
Again, you attempt to boil down identity to being nothing more than statement, when to do so is exactly the problem that leads others to believe that me saying I'm female is just as (il)legitimate as LogicX saying he's a "cistruffle" or that a clinical lycanthrope is an eagle or that someone is a deity. It's to ignore everything I've said about encephalic sex, not to mention my other arguments along these lines in this thread.
What in particular have you said about encephalic sex that renders my argument unsound? You have said that anyone who identifies as female and has female encephalic sex is female. You have said that female identity is a "truly all-encompassing trait". And you have said that once upon a time you did not identify as female. If you don't like the logical consequences of these propositions taken together, that's your problem, not mine.
Honestly, what I think you're trying to do here is preserve the notion of "identity" well past the point of usefulness, just because it's Buzzword Zero in the trans community. But I think you're not really talking about identity anymore, and haven't been for some time. Your reluctance to abandon the concept is what keeps tripping you up when people draw parallels to other forms of identity. Identity is a conscious belief, and you really want to say that someone (e.g. the young you) can be female even if they don't consciously believe they are because their brain is hardwired in certain significant ways for a female body. That's not identity. That's not what a Christian or a Canadian or a Red Sox fan or a Democrat or a clinical lycanthrope or a delusional Napoleon or even a woman has. That's something else.
For instance, take the "there's no implication of a third sex" line. I look at it, and look at the data about having a brain that's masculinized in some respects and feminized in others, then in my case I use identity to decide on which side of the line the ball lies, so to speak.
I only really called maliciousness in two cases: Dehumanization and erasure. In the dehumanization case, it stems from the fact that others leap to saying "being a trans woman is no different than being someone who thinks they're an eagle." In other words, since we're not seen as legitimately female/women/whatever, our identities are treated as being subhuman.
And as has been repeatedly explained to you, the non- (not necessarily sub-)humanity is beside the point. It's not a relevant part of the parallelism.
I called you the Boy Who Cried Wolf just now. Did you complain because you're not a boy, not a shepherd, not Greek, and not raising the alarm for predatory animals? Of course not. Your mind, in processing this metaphor, can automatically tune out these irrelevant parts of the story and immediately identify that my meaning was based on a very generalized version of the boy's action: people who raise too many false alarms desensitize others to the true alarms. This automatic tuning has evidently failed you for the lycanthropy parallelism, so you need to do some manual tuning, so to speak. (And there's another metaphor for you to practice on.)
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
If you don't like living there, you don't have to? You can choose to live wherever you like so long as it suits your means. CLE area is vast. If you wanna live section 8 in the ghetto two cities over, your more than welcome to. If you want to live in a nice yuppy neighborhood, we have those too. There are systems in place to keep the neighborhood nice, and the people who chose to live here appreciate those systems. Its why we chose to live here.
...um, tell that to the American Indians? Or gays in the 1960's, or blacks in the 1940's, or women landowners in the 1900's, or the homeless throughout time...
...um, tell that to the American Indians? Or gays in the 1960's, or blacks in the 1940's, or women landowners in the 1900's, or the homeless throughout time...
@B_S: Off topic, Greek?
Sorry man I don't really know what your getting at or what your looking for. I can spell the post out for you. Tei claimed that housing bilaws were in place, tho largely not enforced, to keep transgendered out. My post explains those bilaws, their origination, why their still there, and how they don't prevent Tei from buying a house because of being transgender.
If your claming that a neighborhood's practices keeps out people who can't afford to live there or keeps the neighborhood from becoming trashy, then you are correct. If you have angst about that, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not a socialist who has a problem with that system.
Sorry man I don't really know what your getting at or what your looking for. I can spell the post out for you. Tei claimed that housing bilaws were in place, tho largely not enforced, to keep transgendered out. My post explains those bilaws, their origination, why their still there, and how they don't prevent Tei from buying a house because of being transgender.
If your claming that a neighborhood's practices keeps out people who can't afford to live there or keeps the neighborhood from becoming trashy, then you are correct. If you have angst about that, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not a socialist who has a problem with that system.
Fair enough, thanks for the clarity. It seems my wires got crossed between your point and my own belief that nobody directly chooses to live in someplace they don't consider "nice."
Fair enough, thanks for the clarity. It seems my wires got crossed between your point and my own belief that nobody directly chooses to live in someplace they don't consider "nice."
Oh. I see. No, they often don't directly choose. I do believe many could do something about it and change it, but often don't know how, don't have the desire to or don't have the resources to start. My friend and I have this conversation at least every couple weeks. Hes black, and I'm the privileged white boy who had a better start from the beginning, wasn't born in a poor community etc etc etc.
California bill banning psychotherapy aimed at Changing minor's same sex desires. Sort of related. I wonder if gender dysphoria will be similarly protected.
This is the same type of argument people make against gay marriage when they bring up "why stop at men marrying men, why not marry your pet, or your car?".
There's no slippery slope here - all I'm doing is pointing out the flaw in this logic:
Quote from Cervid »
Are you more your mind, or your body? I would argue that your self is your mind, regardless of your body.
Do you not see what you're saying here? Your sentence reads that you would argue that self is determined by your mind and that it doesn't matter what kind of body you have.
So logically we can conclude then that it doesn't matter what sex your body is - you are what your mind says you are.
Problem is like I said, we can use the same logic and apply that to clinical lycanthropy - because it doesn't matter what species your body is - you are what your mind says you are.
Quote from Cervid »
However, if you want a real answer to your hypothetical question, I will respond with a hypothetical answer. If you were to transplant an wolf's brain into a human body, then I would agree that that being's self is still a wolf.
That's not a very good comparison because transgenders and lycanthropes are both still human. For your example to be accurate, the wolf would have to identify itself as a human and then we could use your same logic to conclude that the wolf is human, you know - regardless of it's body.
Quote from Cervid »
I can provide all kinds of citations if you want me to show that the physical results in the mind. Are you denying that things like injuries to the brain don't affect the mind?
No, you said that the mind is caused by cells, you need to give a citation for that. You also said that the mind is the brains presentation of itself, you need to give a citation for that too.
I'm not even sure what this sentence means: "I can provide all kinds of citations if you want me to show that the physical results in the mind."
Quote from Cervid »
That's interesting, because those are things that we also bring in to what we call the human mind.
Those are attributes that we think the mind has, yes. However you should keep in mind (I think HTime said it) that there is no unified theory on the mind.
Quote from Cervid »
Actually, how your process pain would be a phenotype. Your mind is absolutely a phenotype, unless you'd like to argue that the mind has non-physical (i.e. supernatural) causes.
Yes, how you process pain is a phenotype, but I said 'pain' isn't a phenotype.
Yes, your brain is a phenotype, but the mind is not. I've asked you twice now to provide an academic peer reviewed article that describes the mind as being a phenotype, I'm asking you now once again to do so. You seem to have trouble doing that. Why is that?
Quote from Cervid »
No, that's not exactly what I'm arguing. Being delusional is different from having actual anatomical characteristics determined pre-birth, either through genetics or environment, that result in a different phenotype.
First off before you go claiming the mind is a phenotype, you need to provide a citation for that.
Secondly, if you're claiming that the brain in transsexuals is fully the opposite sex, from the articles the Teia posted, that's not the case. You don't get to point to one part of the brain that is feminine or masculine and conclude the whole thing is that way too.
Thirdly, I'll even grant you that point anyway. Just because transsexuals identify as a different sex than they are born as - that doesn't make them that sex. Just because someone with clinical lycanthropy identify as a different species than they are born as, that doesn't make them that species.
Quote from Cervid »
No, they do not seem to be parallels.
The only difference here is what they identify as, one is sex - the other is species. That's a parallel.
Do you not see what you're saying here? Your sentence reads that you would argue that self is determined by your mind and that it doesn't matter what kind of body you have.
So logically we can conclude then that it doesn't matter what sex your body is - you are what your mind says you are.
Problem is like I said, we can use the same logic and apply that to clinical lycanthropy - because it doesn't matter what species your body is - you are what your mind says you are.
Except clinical lycanthropy is not in the same ballpark as trans gender. Similarly, I wouldn't agree that someone who really believes they are the best baseball player to ever live, is actually the best baseball player to ever live.
Gender and species are not comparable. I will concede that my statement, "Are you more your mind, or your body? I would argue that your self is your mind, regardless of your body" was in too absolute, or failed to encompass my thoughts on the issue. I don't find someone who is born trans gender to be comparable to someone who develops a psychological illness that results in the delusion that they are a different species.
That's not a very good comparison because transgenders and lycanthropes are both still human. For your example to be accurate, the wolf would have to identify itself as a human and then we could use your same logic to conclude that the wolf is human, you know - regardless of it's body.
Well, it's hard to judge whether or not it's a good comparison or not when you seemingly have misunderstood it to begin with. The contrast I was attempting to portray is that a human brain with a key region that is anatomically expressing a phenotype opposite of the genetic sex of that individual is different from a human brain that has some other mental illness that has resulted in the delusion that the person is a wolf.
No, you said that the mind is caused by cells, you need to give a citation for that. You also said that the mind is the brains presentation of itself, you need to give a citation for that too.
I'm not even sure what this sentence means: "I can provide all kinds of citations if you want me to show that the physical results in the mind."
Those are attributes that we think the mind has, yes. However you should keep in mind (I think HTime said it) that there is no unified theory on the mind.
Okay, before we go further, you need to tell me what you think "the mind" is. Either we are working from different definitions, or you are arguing for a supernatural mind.
Yes, how you process pain is a phenotype, but I said 'pain' isn't a phenotype.
Well of course the concept of "pain" isn't a phenotype. Why is that even something to bring up? Music isn't a phenotype either, neither are track competitions. However, someone musical or athletic ability is.
Yes, your brain is a phenotype, but the mind is not. I've asked you twice now to provide an academic peer reviewed article that describes the mind as being a phenotype, I'm asking you now once again to do so. You seem to have trouble doing that. Why is that?
Because we must be working off of different definitions. Here is why I haven't provided one:
1. It's completely obvious that a person's mind is part of their phenotype. The fact that you disagree either displays a lack of scientific understanding, or that we have different definitions. I suspect the latter.
2. It is so easy to find a journal article that talks about physical processes in the brain resulting in differences in brain processes that it seems silly for me to have to go find you one. If you go to google scholar and search, you'll find pages and pages of them. I'm totally happy to provide citations when I make a very specific reference to a finding, but in this case it's unnecessary.
Secondly, if you're claiming that the brain in transsexuals is fully the opposite sex, from the articles the Teia posted, that's not the case. You don't get to point to one part of the brain that is feminine or masculine and conclude the whole thing is that way too.
That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm not saying that a trans woman's brain is entirely female. What I'm saying is that the part of the brain responsible for gender identity is anatomically feminized, resulting in a female phenotype. We good?
Thirdly, I'll even grant you that point anyway. Just because transsexuals identify as a different sex than they are born as - that doesn't make them that sex.
Is our debate entirely the result of definition issues? Obviously someone who is a trans woman is not genetically male. I've never argue that, because that would be silly.
Just because someone with clinical lycanthropy identify as a different species than they are born as, that doesn't make them that species.
When we say "species", we are inherently implying genetics, whereas when we say "woman" we are not. Again, I do not think this is comparable to trans gender.
Gender and species are not comparable. I will concede that my statement, "Are you more your mind, or your body? I would argue that your self is your mind, regardless of your body" was in too absolute, or failed to encompass my thoughts on the issue. I don't find someone who is born trans gender to be comparable to someone who develops a psychological illness that results in the delusion that they are a different species.
Okay good, this is all I really wanted you to acknowledge.
Quote from Cervid »
Okay, before we go further, you need to tell me what you think "the mind" is. Either we are working from different definitions, or you are arguing for a supernatural mind.
I would agree that we are arguing from different definitions. However, like I said I'm not sure what the mind exactly is because I feel the concept is very abstract and not tangible.
I think the mind is something that describes what our brain does in terms of other non-tangible concepts like thought(s), feelings, memories, consciousness, imagination, dreams, etc. and I think the concept of a mind is very philosophical.
Quote from Cervid »
Well of course the concept of "pain" isn't a phenotype. Why is that even something to bring up? Music isn't a phenotype either, neither are track competitions. However, someone musical or athletic ability is.
Because we must be working off of different definitions. Here is why I haven't provided one:
1. It's completely obvious that a person's mind is part of their phenotype. The fact that you disagree either displays a lack of scientific understanding, or that we have different definitions. I suspect the latter.
2. It is so easy to find a journal article that talks about physical processes in the brain resulting in differences in brain processes that it seems silly for me to have to go find you one. If you go to google scholar and search, you'll find pages and pages of them. I'm totally happy to provide citations when I make a very specific reference to a finding, but in this case it's unnecessary.
I think wikipedia does a good job in describing phenotype:
Despite its seemingly straightforward definition, the concept of the phenotype has hidden subtleties. It may seem that anything dependent on the genotype is a phenotype, including molecules such as RNA and proteins. Most molecules and structures coded by the genetic material are not visible in the appearance of an organism, yet they are observable (for example by Western blotting) and are thus part of the phenotype. Human blood groups are an example. It may also seem that this goes beyond the original intentions of the concept with its focus on the (living) organism in itself, meaning that the lowest level of biological organization compatible with the phenotype concept is at the cellular level. Either way, the term phenotype includes traits or characteristics that can be made visible by some technical procedure. Another extension adds behavior to the phenotype, since behaviors are also observable characteristics. Indeed there is research into the clinical relevance of behavioral phenotypes as they pertain to a range of syndromes.[3][4] Often, the term "phenotype" is incorrectly used as a shorthand to indicate phenotypical changes observed in mutated organisms (most often in connection with knockout mice).[5]
As I said before phenotype has to be something that is observable, since the mind isn't something observable, it isn't a phenotype. The brain for sure is, but not the mind.
From the way you are using mind/brain it seems like you are using them interchangeably and I don't think they are interchangeable. As I said in my definition, I think the mind is something that describes what our brain does with other things that aren't tangible.
That's why I liked that you brought up pain, pain itself isn't a phenotype, it just describes our body's response to stimulus. I think this is similar to the mind - in that the mind itself isn't a phenotype, it's simply our brain reacting to stimulus.
Quote from Cervid »
That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm not saying that a trans woman's brain is entirely female. What I'm saying is that the part of the brain responsible for gender identity is anatomically feminized, resulting in a female phenotype. We good?
Yep, we're good :).
Quote from Cervid »
Is our debate entirely the result of definition issues? Obviously someone who is a trans woman is not genetically male. I've never argue that, because that would be silly.
You mean not genetically female, but yeah I thought that was what you were arguing. Clearly then this is a misunderstanding on both our parts.
Quote from Cervid »
When we say "species", we are inherently implying genetics, whereas when we say "woman" we are not. Again, I do not think this is comparable to trans gender.
Well like I said above, clearly we've misunderstood each other here.
Quote from Cervid »
It's not a parallel, it's two completely different ideas.
It's a moot point since we're not even arguing what we thought we were.
I don't have to. Anyone with the slightest understanding of logic realizes that you can't appeal to "If I identify as X, then I am X" if it isn't true for all X. And it's false for X=God. That means any argument that uses the premise "If I identify as X, then I am X" is unsound. If "identifying as a woman" were different from "identifying as God" in the sense that it actually would imply "being a woman", then the burden of proof is on nobody but you!
"If I can drink X, then X is good for me."
Substitute in water, soft drinks, alcohol, bleach... clearly it's all the same and not related to any actual qualities of X. Also I spent quite a few posts in this thread going over how transsexuality and clinical lycanthropy aren't comparabe.
"Female means X" is always utterly arbitrary and not inherently objective.
People throughout this thread have hidden behind the dictionary with regards to what "female" means in some kind of absolute sense. I propose alternate criteria, and the response is more or less "no, female means XX." If it's so arbitrary, then the XX chromosome definition shouldn't be held as such an ironclad standard.
Nobody in this thread has cited a dictionary that defines a woman in terms of chromosomes, so that claim is simply a lie on your part.
I've seen dictionaries thrown around all over the place. "Woman means adult female human, female means 46,XY." There were all kinds of dictionaries thrown around, even a medical dictionary. I'm not sure why you pretend this isn't the case.
Because of your weak examples. If you yourself admit your examples are not enforced, then are you not exaggerating or complaining about an issue that doesn't really exist? Or are you just finding things to whine about to support your arguments?
Actually, I'm trying to limit the amount of "sob stories" (as people derided them) in this thread. I do have to wonder, though, under what authority you make your "exaggeration" claims. You're presumably not trans, so you've never faced these issues firsthand. You can simply choose to ignore them, and to downplay them when you come across them.
It's actually a pretty dangerous trap to fall into, when you get right down to it. Privileged people will look at cases which, though not outright harmful on their own, add up over time to be painfully oppressive. Yet they only look at single instances of this, like looking at single hailstones in a storm, and conclude that since they could weather that single blow, the marginalized group should too, all the while blind to the sheer number of such hailstones striking a person.
Our housing community has such bi-laws that you listed as one of your examples. They were written in the early 70's during period of reform. And it doesn't say "no transgender people allowed" or "no minorities allowed" or anything of the sort. It says, they "reserve the right to deny housing to anyone at their discretion."
Some 35 years later, its never been revamped. But as you yourself said, it isn't enforced. They can't. Its against the fair housing act. Even if they tried, they would find themselves in court.
Almost no one actually says "you're trans, so we're going to deny you housing." Rather, trans people fall victim to any number of plausible-sounding excuses. Excuses that don't name trans status directly, but are still targeted towards them.
It doesn't matter if your a racial minority or a member of the LGBT community. If you've got the money, and agree to the policies regarding housekeeping, maintenance and preserving the quality of the neighborhood, you will be welcomed here. If your the type who'd like to sit on your front porch without a shirt on, drinking beers and admiring your collection of immobile cars, thinking about your next Obama check which is already spent, while your nappy kids run rampant through your tall-grass then your going to run into issues and the neighborhood will work to oust the issue.
Likewise, if you're visibly trans, openly LGB, whatever, then you're also going to run into issues and the neighbourhood will work to oust you. Maybe those standards will be enforced all that much more strictly with you. Maybe you'll just face extreme social pressure. If you're near a school, maybe parents will complain about you (as if LGBT people are threats to children—and this kind of complaining has been known to happen). Maybe people will openly harass you while everyone else turns a blind eye—"freedom of speech" protects offensive epithets being slung at someone on a regular basis. Whatever the approach, you're still going to find yourself made into an "issue" and therefore "ousted" for no reason other than being undesirable.
And that's only for housing. Employment is another major issue, and let me tell you, employers get downright creative when it comes to discriminating against marginalized groups. They'll suddenly find themselves "not hiring" when you come by, and yet when the straight cis white guy comes by a few days later, the "situation has changed" and they can magically fit him in. They'll employ multiple people in the hiring process, one with looser standards to apply to straight cis white guys ("oh, the job requirements are more of a wish list, you don't need all of them") and another with stricter standards to apply to marginalized groups ("I'm sorry, but you're missing this one single thing we're looking for"). When hiring requirements are entirely subjective, it's very easy to blame not hiring someone on anything but protected classes. And even if a marginalized person does get the job, that's no guarantee they'll be able to keep it. Maybe they'll find themselves "let go" because they "weren't fitting in," or maybe they committed some trivial workplace violation never actionable in the case of a straight cis white guy ("you left crumbs on the break room floor").
Double standards don't just end there. Employers can get pretty creative with what they'll do to keep their workplaces free of marginalized groups they don't like.
You could easily come back (yet again) with "I personally know trans who were denied housing for being trans" to which I'd tell you - Call a lawyer like anyone else.
Great on paper, terrible in practice. Highly marginalized groups generally don't have the resources to be able to take things to court, much less win. And even when they do win, a lot of cases are simply appealed. It'd be great if "calling a lawyer like anyone else [who's privileged]" worked for everyone, but it doesn't, and that's part of the problem.
...or "female means having a female identity". You forgot that one.
I'm not sure I claimed that one to be objective.
Complete non sequitur.
Also missing the point of what I said. The point was to highlight the double standard at play here: Apparently painting others' arguments in a negative light is okay when done to me, but not when done by me.
You have said that anyone who identifies as female and has female encephalic sex is female. You have said that female identity is a "truly all-encompassing trait". And you have said that once upon a time you did not identify as female. If you don't like the logical consequences of these propositions taken together, that's your problem, not mine.
I'm not going to go into the details my life story, so I'm just going to generalize a bit (if you want trans people's life stories, they're all over the Internet, but you're not getting mine). In the case of trans people still in the closet, the "I identify as <assigned gender>" is merely a statement, not actually backed up by anything. It's not backed up by one's encephalic sex at all. It's simply an erroneous statement made due to incomplete information about oneself. People can be made to believe a wide variety of untrue things if they're so indoctrinated.
Your reluctance to abandon the concept is what keeps tripping you up when people draw parallels to other forms of identity.
Gender identity is simply one subset of identity. It's a common mistake to assume that all types of identity share exactly the same traits.
I called you the Boy Who Cried Wolf just now. Did you complain because you're not a boy
Thought about asking you what's wrong with saying "girl who cried wolf," but I decided the inevitable answer (probably "well the story isn't about a girl so 'girl who cried wolf' would be wrong" in the vein of when someone said "strawperson" and got flak for it) wasn't worth asking the question for.
Tei claimed that housing bilaws were in place, tho largely not enforced, to keep transgendered out. My post explains those bilaws, their origination, why their still there, and how they don't prevent Tei from buying a house because of being transgender.
Nope. I said that discrimination exists, not that specific bylaws do. You're confusing it with the air travel example, where I cited the specific portion of the rules in which trans people are prohibited by the rules from flying.
A counterexample is only intended to show that the general case is not true. As for the special case, Blinking Spirit and I have raised quite a few objections to this argument that you have apparently chosen to ignore or didn't understand because you have not written anything that adresses them.
Or that got lost/intentionally ignored by people. I mean, the obvious differences between womanhood and eagle-hood aside, if you want to take the "identify as female" case rather than "identify as woman" case, I'm still waiting for you to show how humans can have non-human body maps (as well as the other things I asked of you in that post).
If anyohe here actually claimed "female is defined as being XX", I'd like that person to stand up and say this, because I don't recall anyone doing so. If I'm wrong, link to that post.
If someone quoted a dictionary as saying "female means 46,XX" then I'm sure you can prove that by giving me a link to that post as well. I'm waiting.
First two I could find off searching this thread for "dictionary." In general, the first thing I quoted is what FoxBlade has been insisting for the bulk of the thread, to the point of trying to dismiss counter-arguments because such counter-arguments don't agree with the dictionary definition of the term. There are other dictionary arguments (including non-medical dictionaries) floating around if you care to look for them.
On the contrary, Teia, this is the form we're using to criticize your argument "identify as X therefore is X." Your statement is a fine example of poor reasoning.
It doesn't matter if clinical lycanthropy and transgenderism are different in respect to physical possibilities, because your argument, at least for a while, was if a person identifies as female, they are female. By inserting clinical lycanthropy into your "identifies as X therefore is X" reasoning, we can clearly see that this is not the case and that your reasoning is poor.
"If you're Havengul problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems and a Lich ain't one." - FSM
"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
You didn't, but it was conspicuous in its absence. Dismiss all the others as arbitrary, you have to dismiss that one too. Where does that leave you? Where do you go from there?
Also missing the point of what I said. The point was to highlight the double standard at play here: Apparently painting others' arguments in a negative light is okay when done to me, but not when done by me.
It is of course not okay in either case. Which is why I never did it. You used "You're not educated on this subject" as an excuse to avoid explanations that might lead to stating facts you don't like, which was not only patronizing but dishonest. But nobody has used "How is transsexuality like lycanthropy?" to try to avoid anything. On the contrary, we were prompting you to explain yourself further. (Which you now avoid by dismissing it as "ridicule". :rolleyes:) There is no connection between your action and mine. Hence: non sequitur.
In the case of trans people still in the closet, the "I identify as <assigned gender>" is merely a statement, not actually backed up by anything. It's not backed up by one's encephalic sex at all. It's simply an erroneous statement made due to incomplete information about oneself. People can be made to believe a wide variety of untrue things if they're so indoctrinated.
Gender identity is simply one subset of identity. It's a common mistake to assume that all types of identity share exactly the same traits.
By "merely a statement" I'm going to assume you mean a conscious belief. Anyone can state "I'm Irish" for whatever reason, but we don't think that they self-identify* in the relevant sense as Irish unless they believe what they just said. Now, if someone believes they are Irish, it is true that they self-identify as Irish. But is it true that they are Irish? That's still an open question. And it depends on how you define "Irish". If to be Irish is to self-identify as Irish, then of course it's tautologically true (and meaningless). If it's to have Irish genetics then it's probably true, but maybe they're adopted and don't know it. If it's to be familiar with and participate in Irish culture, then it may be true, but there are many Irish-Americans who don't know a shamrock from a shillelagh but just like to get plastered on St. Patrick's Day, and so self-identify as "Irish" erroneously by this definition. And if it's to actually live in Ireland, then of course those Irish-Americans are wrong there.
The term "self-identity" refers to what people believe they are. And you're absolutely correct that this belief can coincide with or even be based on a mistaken understanding of the facts. In the case of our adopted Irishmen and Irish-American posers above, we might say that their self-identification is untrue. But here's the thing: we would not say it's untrue that they self-identify as Irish. Right or wrong, they do.
And, right or wrong, closeted transsexuals do self-identify as their physiological sex. By your definition of sex, in their belief that they are male or female they are mistaken about certain neurological facts. This doesn't change the fact that they believe it. This doesn't change how they self-identify. Your problem is that you're trying to use the term "identity" to refer to these neurological facts as well as to conscious self-identification. That's not a "subset" of identity, that's something else entirely. You're using the same term for two different concepts at two different levels of description. That's like calling genetics "identity" and saying that the adopted Irishman's Irish identity is mistaken because he doesn't have an Irish identity. Just a little bit confusing, right?
So no, it is not a "common mistake" to expect that when you use the same term you mean the same thing; that's just good ambiguity-avoiding argumentative practice. What is a common mistake is equivocation. And that is precisely what you're doing here. Don't blame me for it. Swallow your pride and accept that the word you've been indoctrinated to repeat ad nauseam may not be appropriate in every circumstance.
*I'm going to start appending "self-" to "identity" so as not to confuse it with the mathematical/logical concept of identity.
Thought about asking you what's wrong with saying "girl who cried wolf," but I decided the inevitable answer (probably "well the story isn't about a girl so 'girl who cried wolf' would be wrong" in the vein of when someone said "strawperson" and got flak for it) wasn't worth asking the question for.
Actually, the answer would have been "you fail metaphors... again", with an exposition of relevant and irrelevant facts in metaphor very similar to what you just saw (and, I can't help but notice, did not acknowledge, but instead focused on this irrelevance... do I have to start the List again?).
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Just a side note, my particular interest in transgender acceptance issues comes from my exposure to disability rights issues which have a lot of parallel principles to gay rights and transgender rights. "A seat at the table".
@Teia: from a legal or rules-based inclusion standpoint (apart from individual bigotry and lack of acceptance, language), what are the current areas that you feel remain the most significantly "transgender-unfriendly" ?
It is categorically impossible for science to say anything like "there is more to being a dog than we thought". To be a dog is no more and no less than to be what we think is a dog - or to be more precise, to have the properties that we think are essential to doghood. Science does not and cannot tell us how to define terms. It can tell us interesting things about dogs, but no discovery it could possibly make could say, "Okay, folks, the category 'dog' has the wrong intension, time to change it", because the category is created arbitrarily by the language community.
Now, sometimes new scientific discoveries can move particular objects into and out of defined categories. For instance, the sun was at first considered one of the planets, and only later discovered to be a star. But it could only do this because we had a received consensus definition of what a "planet" is, and it was discovered that the sun didn't actually have the planet-ish properties it seemed to have - to be specific, what seemed to be its celestial "wandering" was actually the Earth's wandering. Furthermore, science can refine our understanding of where the properties we use to define things come from. It can discover that the planets' "wandering" in the sky is caused by orbital motion, that this motion is elliptical, that it's caused by the gravitational force, and so on. But it can't discover that a category has been defined wrongly. Scientists did not discover that planets have to have "cleared their neighborhoods" (thus rendering Pluto a non-planet); they decided that planets have to have "cleared their neighborhoods" - a decision that was, like all matters of linguistic usage, made by consensus and arbitrary with respect to the facts.
As a matter of linguistic usage, I'm skeptical that they actually did update the definition to be strictly chromosomal - as you yourself are so fond of pointing out, everybody thinks of people with CAIS as women. But whether they did or didn't update the definition is irrelevant to the question of whether they should. Because there is no "should" here. If they updated the definition, that was an arbitrary consensus; and if they didn't, that too was an arbitrary consensus; and if they update it again, that will be an arbitrary consensus; and if they don't, that too will be an arbitrary consensus; and there is no possible scientific fact that can entail that one update should or should not happen or that one definition is or is not better than the other.
First of all, it's not ridicule, it's a perfectly civil parallelism attempt. Second, even if it were ridicule, your complaining that it was would not refute it in any way. Ridicule can very well contain sound arguments. See: all satire ever.
But getting back on subject, I did say way back when that if you found an alternative parallel, I'd use it, and you have, so I will.
But you say that in your childhood you did not identify as female, so either (a) you were not female as a child; or (b) you were female despite not identifying as such, and female identity is not a "truly all-encompassing trait". Furthermore, you've defined female encephalic sex as being dependent on female identity, so you did not have a female encephalic sex in your childhood.
"Split hairs"? Cling to straws, more like. You know how you keep saying people "lack experience/education/etc." about trans issues? You lack experience/education/etc. about linguistics. And I neither have the time to, nor see the value in, getting into the technicalities at play here when you can't even seem to grasp the basics.
Can I do that? Blow you off that way? (This is to illustrate a point, of course, but I really don't want to go any further into the semantics of metaphor - not because it's over your head, but because it's getting really tangential.)
And I think it's quite telling on your part that you insinuate those who disagree with you have malicious intent. I mean, come on, you can't even do it right. The only way that the comparison to lycanthropy is dehumanizing is if you think lycanthropes aren't human. That conclusion is only arrived at by extrapolating from your statements about identity, and the next step in the argument is to point out that that conclusion is absurd. In other words: the only reason people are using the lycanthrope argument is because they think lycanthropes are human.
So save the victim card for when you're actually being victimized, O Boy Who Cries Wolf. (And in case you're confused: the boy, who is you in this metaphor, is human.)
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Prove that being a deity is at all comparable to being a woman.
So show that it's possible for a human to have the body map of a wolf.
Godwin's Law aside, that example has nothing to do with this debate.
What's your point, and how does it relate to the slippery slope I mentioned?
To be blunt, it takes a lot more than anyone on this forum is capable of doing to me in order to harm me. That aside, anyone who tries to tell trans people that we exaggerate the level of oppression we face (ostensibly on the grounds that they, as cis people, don't see this so it must not exist) is part of the problem in terms of trans oppression whether they think they are or not.
That's an impressively broad category you've handed me there. I honestly wouldn't know where to begin, so for the moment I'll just leave it with something you said: Recognition is relatively fine if you're post-op, and on some levels, yes, it's better than if you're pre-op, but even so, it's still nightmarish and also even worse if you're pre-op. The fact that cis people place far, far greater emphasis on op status than trans people doesn't help matters.
The facts as they stand being merely what's physically there in the solar system. Likewise, the majority of women being XX is fact, but "female means XX chromosomes" is utterly arbitrary and not inherently objective (no more objective than "female means having a ******" or "female means having breasts" or "female means being no taller than this"). Thus when we find ourselves saying people who aren't XX are female, and something's gotta give, do we say those non-XX women aren't female, or do we acknowledge that "female" needs to be somewhat broader?
In terms of everyday usage, chromosomes don't matter in the slightest. In terms of the dictionary definitions certain people cling to, however, chromosomes seem the determining factor.
You know, I had the thought that the dictionary saying "female means XX chromosomes" can be thought of as akin to the simplifications you argued with me about. Most females have XX chromosomes, and for the sake of brevity the dictionary simply puts things in generalized, concise terms, which people read and interpret in a downright dogmatic way, missing the reality that real-life sex determination isn't actually so simplistic.
If my statement that certain people are ignorant of trans issues and that this isn't a subject one can simply pick up instantly is "disparaging other posters' intelligence," then the clinical lycanthropy argument is absolutely the ridicule I called it. And for that matter, "you lack experience/education/etc about linguistics" would (under the same logic) be disparaging my intelligence.
Again, you attempt to boil down identity to being nothing more than statement, when to do so is exactly the problem that leads others to believe that me saying I'm female is just as (il)legitimate as LogicX saying he's a "cistruffle" or that a clinical lycanthrope is an eagle or that someone is a deity. It's to ignore everything I've said about encephalic sex, not to mention my other arguments along these lines in this thread.
Also I did not define female encephalic sex as being dependent on female identity. That's just something you invented.
You know, I already have to translate others' arguments into correct terminology (e.g. people who say "real woman" instead of "cis woman"), so I don't see anything unreasonable about others doing similar when I don't use the precise, specific words they want.
I only really called maliciousness in two cases: Dehumanization and erasure. In the dehumanization case, it stems from the fact that others leap to saying "being a trans woman is no different than being someone who thinks they're an eagle." In other words, since we're not seen as legitimately female/women/whatever, our identities are treated as being subhuman. In the erasure case, well, just imagine a white person in the 50s and 60s telling a black civil rights activist that society isn't really racist, and you'll see what I mean.
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Side note (not directed at anyone in particular), this thread is now longer than the old gender-issues thread.
"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
Ashcoat Bear of Limited
This is the same type of argument people make against gay marriage when they bring up "why stop at men marrying men, why not marry your pet, or your car?".
However, if you want a real answer to your hypothetical question, I will respond with a hypothetical answer. If you were to transplant an wolf's brain into a human body, then I would agree that that being's self is still a wolf.
I can provide all kinds of citations if you want me to show that the physical results in the mind. Are you denying that things like injuries to the brain don't affect the mind?
That's interesting, because those are things that we also bring in to what we call the human mind.
Actually, how your process pain would be a phenotype. Your mind is absolutely a phenotype, unless you'd like to argue that the mind has non-physical (i.e. supernatural) causes.
The more you say things like this, the more I'm getting a sense that you're arguing for a supernatural mind.
No, it's a poor analogy and a false equivalency on yours. Clinical lycanthropy is not the same kind of thing as trans gender.
Chill. So it's a garbage counterexample.
It is in terms of how the brain identifies self. Remember you're arguing that if the brain identifies you as something, you are that something.
That's not a false equivalency, that's a direct parallel. I'll respond to your other post later.
Because of your weak examples. If you yourself admit your examples are not enforced, then are you not exaggerating or complaining about an issue that doesn't really exist? Or are you just finding things to whine about to support your arguments?
Our housing community has such bi-laws that you listed as one of your examples. They were written in the early 70's during period of reform. And it doesn't say "no transgender people allowed" or "no minorities allowed" or anything of the sort. It says, they "reserve the right to deny housing to anyone at their discretion."
Some 35 years later, its never been revamped. But as you yourself said, it isn't enforced. They can't. Its against the fair housing act. Even if they tried, they would find themselves in court. Nobody really cares, except for people who like to point at it once in a while, claim discrimination and use it as a case example (sound familiar?) The big reason they keep it is because the government won't fund housing to communities with such bi-laws, and we don't want them to. So even as outdated as it is, it still serves that very purpose, and removal would thus qualify the homes here for government housing.
That bi-law, and alot of others were put in place to keep the neighborhood prisitine. To keep out hillbillies with their cars up on blocks. To keep out people who clutter their porch and living areas with junk, decrepit furniture and garbage. To prevent 8 adults and 6 kids living in one home, or people with cars that are only worth 500$ but somehow have $5000 spin rims on them with and a $2000 stereo system
But to accomplish that, my neighborhood doesn't fall back on bi-laws that are 35 years old and discriminate on a case by case basis in violation of the fair housing act. Simply enough, they make it expensive enough to live there, that most of the above problems resolve themselves. This approach works extremely well, in addition to not having government funded housing. The result is a nice, beautiful and peaceful neighborhood you can be proud of.
It doesn't matter if your a racial minority or a member of the LGBT community. If you've got the money, and agree to the policies regarding housekeeping, maintenance and preserving the quality of the neighborhood, you will be welcomed here. If your the type who'd like to sit on your front porch without a shirt on, drinking beers and admiring your collection of immobile cars, thinking about your next Obama check which is already spent, while your nappy kids run rampant through your tall-grass then your going to run into issues and the neighborhood will work to oust the issue.
If a neighborhood like that isn't your scene, and you believe were a bunch of snide people who think were better than people in poorer communities, then you wouldn't want to live around us and have us for neighbors ANYWAY so whatever rules we might have don't apply to you regardless.
So yes. When you point at unenforced housing bi-laws written back in the early 70's, while the KKK was on its third breath of life and white people were just now being convicted for killing black people, I'm going to say your exaggerating those particular examples. Does it simply boil down to you "not liking" that rule still being there? It is there for a reason, just not the one you exemplified. And anyone who says your exagerating it, is one of them and part of the problem.
You could easily come back (yet again) with "I personally know trans who were denied housing for being trans" to which I'd tell you - Call a lawyer like anyone else.
My Buying Thread
Can I get some clarification on this? Because right now I'm reading "Screw anybody who doesn't like living in an expensive town home." That's an alright statement to make when you're considering where you want to live, revel in your privilege all you like, but in a debate about oppression this comes across as oppressive as it gets.
No, that's not exactly what I'm arguing. Being delusional is different from having actual anatomical characteristics determined pre-birth, either through genetics or environment, that result in a different phenotype.
No, they do not seem to be parallels.
If you don't like living there, you don't have to? You can choose to live wherever you like so long as it suits your means. CLE area is vast. If you wanna live section 8 in the ghetto two cities over, your more than welcome to. If you want to live in a nice yuppy neighborhood, we have those too. There are systems in place to keep the neighborhood nice, and the people who chose to live here appreciate those systems. Its why we chose to live here.
My Buying Thread
...or "female means having a female identity". You forgot that one.
It does not need to be anything. You have got to expunge your vocabulary of all these prescriptive terms like "should" and "need" if you want to talk about this issue sensibly.
But yes, if we find ourselves saying people who aren't XX are female, then this is evidence that we are not in fact using a strict chromosomal definition. That is a descriptive linguistic discovery. And you like this argument, because it undermines some of the people who disagree with you. But when I turn the form around on you, and point out that we also find ourselves saying people who don't have female identities are female, then HYPOCRITICAL RAGE!!!!1!!
Yes. Your problem is that you're saying we "should" replace it with another definition that is just as artificial and just as simplistic.
Complete non sequitur.
Um... yes. I said I was illustrating a point. What point did you think I was illustrating?
What in particular have you said about encephalic sex that renders my argument unsound? You have said that anyone who identifies as female and has female encephalic sex is female. You have said that female identity is a "truly all-encompassing trait". And you have said that once upon a time you did not identify as female. If you don't like the logical consequences of these propositions taken together, that's your problem, not mine.
Honestly, what I think you're trying to do here is preserve the notion of "identity" well past the point of usefulness, just because it's Buzzword Zero in the trans community. But I think you're not really talking about identity anymore, and haven't been for some time. Your reluctance to abandon the concept is what keeps tripping you up when people draw parallels to other forms of identity. Identity is a conscious belief, and you really want to say that someone (e.g. the young you) can be female even if they don't consciously believe they are because their brain is hardwired in certain significant ways for a female body. That's not identity. That's not what a Christian or a Canadian or a Red Sox fan or a Democrat or a clinical lycanthrope or a delusional Napoleon or even a woman has. That's something else.
And as has been repeatedly explained to you, the non- (not necessarily sub-)humanity is beside the point. It's not a relevant part of the parallelism.
I called you the Boy Who Cried Wolf just now. Did you complain because you're not a boy, not a shepherd, not Greek, and not raising the alarm for predatory animals? Of course not. Your mind, in processing this metaphor, can automatically tune out these irrelevant parts of the story and immediately identify that my meaning was based on a very generalized version of the boy's action: people who raise too many false alarms desensitize others to the true alarms. This automatic tuning has evidently failed you for the lycanthropy parallelism, so you need to do some manual tuning, so to speak. (And there's another metaphor for you to practice on.)
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
...um, tell that to the American Indians? Or gays in the 1960's, or blacks in the 1940's, or women landowners in the 1900's, or the homeless throughout time...
@B_S: Off topic, Greek?
Sorry man I don't really know what your getting at or what your looking for. I can spell the post out for you. Tei claimed that housing bilaws were in place, tho largely not enforced, to keep transgendered out. My post explains those bilaws, their origination, why their still there, and how they don't prevent Tei from buying a house because of being transgender.
If your claming that a neighborhood's practices keeps out people who can't afford to live there or keeps the neighborhood from becoming trashy, then you are correct. If you have angst about that, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not a socialist who has a problem with that system.
My Buying Thread
Fair enough, thanks for the clarity. It seems my wires got crossed between your point and my own belief that nobody directly chooses to live in someplace they don't consider "nice."
Oh. I see. No, they often don't directly choose. I do believe many could do something about it and change it, but often don't know how, don't have the desire to or don't have the resources to start. My friend and I have this conversation at least every couple weeks. Hes black, and I'm the privileged white boy who had a better start from the beginning, wasn't born in a poor community etc etc etc.
My Buying Thread
California bill banning psychotherapy aimed at Changing minor's same sex desires. Sort of related. I wonder if gender dysphoria will be similarly protected.
There's no slippery slope here - all I'm doing is pointing out the flaw in this logic:
Do you not see what you're saying here? Your sentence reads that you would argue that self is determined by your mind and that it doesn't matter what kind of body you have.
So logically we can conclude then that it doesn't matter what sex your body is - you are what your mind says you are.
Problem is like I said, we can use the same logic and apply that to clinical lycanthropy - because it doesn't matter what species your body is - you are what your mind says you are.
That's not a very good comparison because transgenders and lycanthropes are both still human. For your example to be accurate, the wolf would have to identify itself as a human and then we could use your same logic to conclude that the wolf is human, you know - regardless of it's body.
No, you said that the mind is caused by cells, you need to give a citation for that. You also said that the mind is the brains presentation of itself, you need to give a citation for that too.
I'm not even sure what this sentence means: "I can provide all kinds of citations if you want me to show that the physical results in the mind."
Those are attributes that we think the mind has, yes. However you should keep in mind (I think HTime said it) that there is no unified theory on the mind.
Yes, how you process pain is a phenotype, but I said 'pain' isn't a phenotype.
Yes, your brain is a phenotype, but the mind is not. I've asked you twice now to provide an academic peer reviewed article that describes the mind as being a phenotype, I'm asking you now once again to do so. You seem to have trouble doing that. Why is that?
First off before you go claiming the mind is a phenotype, you need to provide a citation for that.
Secondly, if you're claiming that the brain in transsexuals is fully the opposite sex, from the articles the Teia posted, that's not the case. You don't get to point to one part of the brain that is feminine or masculine and conclude the whole thing is that way too.
Thirdly, I'll even grant you that point anyway. Just because transsexuals identify as a different sex than they are born as - that doesn't make them that sex. Just because someone with clinical lycanthropy identify as a different species than they are born as, that doesn't make them that species.
The only difference here is what they identify as, one is sex - the other is species. That's a parallel.
Except clinical lycanthropy is not in the same ballpark as trans gender. Similarly, I wouldn't agree that someone who really believes they are the best baseball player to ever live, is actually the best baseball player to ever live.
Gender and species are not comparable. I will concede that my statement, "Are you more your mind, or your body? I would argue that your self is your mind, regardless of your body" was in too absolute, or failed to encompass my thoughts on the issue. I don't find someone who is born trans gender to be comparable to someone who develops a psychological illness that results in the delusion that they are a different species.
Well, it's hard to judge whether or not it's a good comparison or not when you seemingly have misunderstood it to begin with. The contrast I was attempting to portray is that a human brain with a key region that is anatomically expressing a phenotype opposite of the genetic sex of that individual is different from a human brain that has some other mental illness that has resulted in the delusion that the person is a wolf.
Okay, before we go further, you need to tell me what you think "the mind" is. Either we are working from different definitions, or you are arguing for a supernatural mind.
Well of course the concept of "pain" isn't a phenotype. Why is that even something to bring up? Music isn't a phenotype either, neither are track competitions. However, someone musical or athletic ability is.
Because we must be working off of different definitions. Here is why I haven't provided one:
1. It's completely obvious that a person's mind is part of their phenotype. The fact that you disagree either displays a lack of scientific understanding, or that we have different definitions. I suspect the latter.
2. It is so easy to find a journal article that talks about physical processes in the brain resulting in differences in brain processes that it seems silly for me to have to go find you one. If you go to google scholar and search, you'll find pages and pages of them. I'm totally happy to provide citations when I make a very specific reference to a finding, but in this case it's unnecessary.
That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm not saying that a trans woman's brain is entirely female. What I'm saying is that the part of the brain responsible for gender identity is anatomically feminized, resulting in a female phenotype. We good?
Is our debate entirely the result of definition issues? Obviously someone who is a trans woman is not genetically male. I've never argue that, because that would be silly.
When we say "species", we are inherently implying genetics, whereas when we say "woman" we are not. Again, I do not think this is comparable to trans gender.
It's not a parallel, it's two completely different ideas.
Okay good, this is all I really wanted you to acknowledge.
I would agree that we are arguing from different definitions. However, like I said I'm not sure what the mind exactly is because I feel the concept is very abstract and not tangible.
I think the mind is something that describes what our brain does in terms of other non-tangible concepts like thought(s), feelings, memories, consciousness, imagination, dreams, etc. and I think the concept of a mind is very philosophical.
I think wikipedia does a good job in describing phenotype:
Despite its seemingly straightforward definition, the concept of the phenotype has hidden subtleties. It may seem that anything dependent on the genotype is a phenotype, including molecules such as RNA and proteins. Most molecules and structures coded by the genetic material are not visible in the appearance of an organism, yet they are observable (for example by Western blotting) and are thus part of the phenotype. Human blood groups are an example. It may also seem that this goes beyond the original intentions of the concept with its focus on the (living) organism in itself, meaning that the lowest level of biological organization compatible with the phenotype concept is at the cellular level. Either way, the term phenotype includes traits or characteristics that can be made visible by some technical procedure. Another extension adds behavior to the phenotype, since behaviors are also observable characteristics. Indeed there is research into the clinical relevance of behavioral phenotypes as they pertain to a range of syndromes.[3][4] Often, the term "phenotype" is incorrectly used as a shorthand to indicate phenotypical changes observed in mutated organisms (most often in connection with knockout mice).[5]
As I said before phenotype has to be something that is observable, since the mind isn't something observable, it isn't a phenotype. The brain for sure is, but not the mind.
From the way you are using mind/brain it seems like you are using them interchangeably and I don't think they are interchangeable. As I said in my definition, I think the mind is something that describes what our brain does with other things that aren't tangible.
That's why I liked that you brought up pain, pain itself isn't a phenotype, it just describes our body's response to stimulus. I think this is similar to the mind - in that the mind itself isn't a phenotype, it's simply our brain reacting to stimulus.
Yep, we're good :).
You mean not genetically female, but yeah I thought that was what you were arguing. Clearly then this is a misunderstanding on both our parts.
Well like I said above, clearly we've misunderstood each other here.
It's a moot point since we're not even arguing what we thought we were.
"If I can drink X, then X is good for me."
Substitute in water, soft drinks, alcohol, bleach... clearly it's all the same and not related to any actual qualities of X. Also I spent quite a few posts in this thread going over how transsexuality and clinical lycanthropy aren't comparabe.
People throughout this thread have hidden behind the dictionary with regards to what "female" means in some kind of absolute sense. I propose alternate criteria, and the response is more or less "no, female means XX." If it's so arbitrary, then the XX chromosome definition shouldn't be held as such an ironclad standard.
I've seen dictionaries thrown around all over the place. "Woman means adult female human, female means 46,XY." There were all kinds of dictionaries thrown around, even a medical dictionary. I'm not sure why you pretend this isn't the case.
Actually, I'm trying to limit the amount of "sob stories" (as people derided them) in this thread. I do have to wonder, though, under what authority you make your "exaggeration" claims. You're presumably not trans, so you've never faced these issues firsthand. You can simply choose to ignore them, and to downplay them when you come across them.
It's actually a pretty dangerous trap to fall into, when you get right down to it. Privileged people will look at cases which, though not outright harmful on their own, add up over time to be painfully oppressive. Yet they only look at single instances of this, like looking at single hailstones in a storm, and conclude that since they could weather that single blow, the marginalized group should too, all the while blind to the sheer number of such hailstones striking a person.
Almost no one actually says "you're trans, so we're going to deny you housing." Rather, trans people fall victim to any number of plausible-sounding excuses. Excuses that don't name trans status directly, but are still targeted towards them.
Likewise, if you're visibly trans, openly LGB, whatever, then you're also going to run into issues and the neighbourhood will work to oust you. Maybe those standards will be enforced all that much more strictly with you. Maybe you'll just face extreme social pressure. If you're near a school, maybe parents will complain about you (as if LGBT people are threats to children—and this kind of complaining has been known to happen). Maybe people will openly harass you while everyone else turns a blind eye—"freedom of speech" protects offensive epithets being slung at someone on a regular basis. Whatever the approach, you're still going to find yourself made into an "issue" and therefore "ousted" for no reason other than being undesirable.
And that's only for housing. Employment is another major issue, and let me tell you, employers get downright creative when it comes to discriminating against marginalized groups. They'll suddenly find themselves "not hiring" when you come by, and yet when the straight cis white guy comes by a few days later, the "situation has changed" and they can magically fit him in. They'll employ multiple people in the hiring process, one with looser standards to apply to straight cis white guys ("oh, the job requirements are more of a wish list, you don't need all of them") and another with stricter standards to apply to marginalized groups ("I'm sorry, but you're missing this one single thing we're looking for"). When hiring requirements are entirely subjective, it's very easy to blame not hiring someone on anything but protected classes. And even if a marginalized person does get the job, that's no guarantee they'll be able to keep it. Maybe they'll find themselves "let go" because they "weren't fitting in," or maybe they committed some trivial workplace violation never actionable in the case of a straight cis white guy ("you left crumbs on the break room floor").
Double standards don't just end there. Employers can get pretty creative with what they'll do to keep their workplaces free of marginalized groups they don't like.
Great on paper, terrible in practice. Highly marginalized groups generally don't have the resources to be able to take things to court, much less win. And even when they do win, a lot of cases are simply appealed. It'd be great if "calling a lawyer like anyone else [who's privileged]" worked for everyone, but it doesn't, and that's part of the problem.
I'm not sure I claimed that one to be objective.
Also missing the point of what I said. The point was to highlight the double standard at play here: Apparently painting others' arguments in a negative light is okay when done to me, but not when done by me.
I'm not going to go into the details my life story, so I'm just going to generalize a bit (if you want trans people's life stories, they're all over the Internet, but you're not getting mine). In the case of trans people still in the closet, the "I identify as <assigned gender>" is merely a statement, not actually backed up by anything. It's not backed up by one's encephalic sex at all. It's simply an erroneous statement made due to incomplete information about oneself. People can be made to believe a wide variety of untrue things if they're so indoctrinated.
Gender identity is simply one subset of identity. It's a common mistake to assume that all types of identity share exactly the same traits.
Thought about asking you what's wrong with saying "girl who cried wolf," but I decided the inevitable answer (probably "well the story isn't about a girl so 'girl who cried wolf' would be wrong" in the vein of when someone said "strawperson" and got flak for it) wasn't worth asking the question for.
Nope. I said that discrimination exists, not that specific bylaws do. You're confusing it with the air travel example, where I cited the specific portion of the rules in which trans people are prohibited by the rules from flying.
Or that got lost/intentionally ignored by people. I mean, the obvious differences between womanhood and eagle-hood aside, if you want to take the "identify as female" case rather than "identify as woman" case, I'm still waiting for you to show how humans can have non-human body maps (as well as the other things I asked of you in that post).
"How about we define 'human female' as an individual who has the XX karyotype and who's cell nuclei contain barr bodies and 'human males' as an individual who has the XY karyotype and who's cell nuclei do not contain barr bodies."
Linking to two dictionary definitions.
First two I could find off searching this thread for "dictionary." In general, the first thing I quoted is what FoxBlade has been insisting for the bulk of the thread, to the point of trying to dismiss counter-arguments because such counter-arguments don't agree with the dictionary definition of the term. There are other dictionary arguments (including non-medical dictionaries) floating around if you care to look for them.
On the contrary, Teia, this is the form we're using to criticize your argument "identify as X therefore is X." Your statement is a fine example of poor reasoning.
It doesn't matter if clinical lycanthropy and transgenderism are different in respect to physical possibilities, because your argument, at least for a while, was if a person identifies as female, they are female. By inserting clinical lycanthropy into your "identifies as X therefore is X" reasoning, we can clearly see that this is not the case and that your reasoning is poor.
"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
Ashcoat Bear of Limited
You didn't, but it was conspicuous in its absence. Dismiss all the others as arbitrary, you have to dismiss that one too. Where does that leave you? Where do you go from there?
It is of course not okay in either case. Which is why I never did it. You used "You're not educated on this subject" as an excuse to avoid explanations that might lead to stating facts you don't like, which was not only patronizing but dishonest. But nobody has used "How is transsexuality like lycanthropy?" to try to avoid anything. On the contrary, we were prompting you to explain yourself further. (Which you now avoid by dismissing it as "ridicule". :rolleyes:) There is no connection between your action and mine. Hence: non sequitur.
By "merely a statement" I'm going to assume you mean a conscious belief. Anyone can state "I'm Irish" for whatever reason, but we don't think that they self-identify* in the relevant sense as Irish unless they believe what they just said. Now, if someone believes they are Irish, it is true that they self-identify as Irish. But is it true that they are Irish? That's still an open question. And it depends on how you define "Irish". If to be Irish is to self-identify as Irish, then of course it's tautologically true (and meaningless). If it's to have Irish genetics then it's probably true, but maybe they're adopted and don't know it. If it's to be familiar with and participate in Irish culture, then it may be true, but there are many Irish-Americans who don't know a shamrock from a shillelagh but just like to get plastered on St. Patrick's Day, and so self-identify as "Irish" erroneously by this definition. And if it's to actually live in Ireland, then of course those Irish-Americans are wrong there.
The term "self-identity" refers to what people believe they are. And you're absolutely correct that this belief can coincide with or even be based on a mistaken understanding of the facts. In the case of our adopted Irishmen and Irish-American posers above, we might say that their self-identification is untrue. But here's the thing: we would not say it's untrue that they self-identify as Irish. Right or wrong, they do.
And, right or wrong, closeted transsexuals do self-identify as their physiological sex. By your definition of sex, in their belief that they are male or female they are mistaken about certain neurological facts. This doesn't change the fact that they believe it. This doesn't change how they self-identify. Your problem is that you're trying to use the term "identity" to refer to these neurological facts as well as to conscious self-identification. That's not a "subset" of identity, that's something else entirely. You're using the same term for two different concepts at two different levels of description. That's like calling genetics "identity" and saying that the adopted Irishman's Irish identity is mistaken because he doesn't have an Irish identity. Just a little bit confusing, right?
So no, it is not a "common mistake" to expect that when you use the same term you mean the same thing; that's just good ambiguity-avoiding argumentative practice. What is a common mistake is equivocation. And that is precisely what you're doing here. Don't blame me for it. Swallow your pride and accept that the word you've been indoctrinated to repeat ad nauseam may not be appropriate in every circumstance.
*I'm going to start appending "self-" to "identity" so as not to confuse it with the mathematical/logical concept of identity.
Actually, the answer would have been "you fail metaphors... again", with an exposition of relevant and irrelevant facts in metaphor very similar to what you just saw (and, I can't help but notice, did not acknowledge, but instead focused on this irrelevance... do I have to start the List again?).
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.