1. IF there was a gene that caused people to be predisposed to homosexuality, you would think it would eventually "breed out", simply due to artificial selection which is the paradox of having the gene anyway. Unless, everyone had this predisposition, and there was a trigger that caused it to be expressed. Now, this leads to the frightining possibility that homosexuality could be repressed, or expressed by a drug.
2. My personal opinion? I try to adhere to my own personal morals never to discriminate, based on sexuality. But, i find my personal bias's are usually based on people trying to adhere to a stereotype - predominately one that i find irritating - not because of the homosexuality that is the nature of the person - but the stereotype itself.
I, as usual, am probably completely off topic. Sorry.
msun: Knives scoop ice cream.
Highroller: No they don't, knives don't scoop. Spoons scoop.
msun: Well, knives SHOULD scoop icecream.
Highroller: We have spoons that do it. Moreover, the shape of a knife that would scoop ice cream would make it horrible for performing the functions of a knife.
msun: Highroller, you bring up spoons as though they were the utensil used for scooping ice cream.
How can I put this? It's analogous to the functional difference between the hammer of a gun and the bullet. You need both to shoot someone, but they lie at different points on the causal chain. The hammer causes the bullet to fire, and the bullet's firing causes the victim to get shot. The motive causes the intent, and the intent causes the action.
Also worth consideration is the fact that the spectrum of possible motives is blurry and many-hued, a nightmarish continuum of all the human vices, whereas intent is relatively simple and clear cut, being strictly a matter of what state of affairs the criminal desired to bring about through his or her actions. At the risk of screwing up the analogy past all coherence, it's as if the gun had an infinite number of hammers that could fire the bullet, but only one bullet.
And the reason this difference is so important for the law is that only the intent to commit a crime is judicially noteworthy. You and I have certainly felt emotions that, in another, might have caused an intent to form; we've all been washed over with avarice or rage at some time or another. This is what motive, stripped of intent, looks like. It's certainly not pretty, but neither is it the sort of thing the cops and the courts have to worry about. It is the formation of an intent to commit a crime that separates a criminal from the rest of us; this is the final link in the causal chain leading from the beginning of the universe to the crime itself, and the first one in which the crime's actual form appears (in the criminal's mind). A man may be born and commit no crime. He may marry a woman and commit no crime. He may catch her with another man and commit no crime. He may grow angry and jealous and commit no crime. But when he forms the intent to kill her, only then does he become dangerous.
Now, I'm not dismissing motive completely, of course. It's important from an evidentiary perspective, since there's something very fishy about a criminal case that involves an intent leaping out of nowhere into the suspect's head. But once the facts are in order, it's not something that ought to be punished, both because of the freedom of conscience I've talked about in previous posts, and also simply because it wouldn't be punished in a vacuum.
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How can I put this? It's analogous to the functional difference between the hammer of a gun and the bullet. You need both to shoot someone, but they lie at different points on the causal chain. The hammer causes the bullet to fire, and the bullet's firing causes the victim to get shot. The motive causes the intent, and the intent causes the action.
Also worth consideration is the fact that the spectrum of possible motives is blurry and many-hued, a nightmarish continuum of all the human vices, whereas intent is relatively simple and clear cut, being strictly a matter of what state of affairs the criminal desired to bring about through his or her actions. At the risk of screwing up the analogy past all coherence, it's as if the gun had an infinite number of hammers that could fire the bullet, but only one bullet.
And the reason this difference is so important for the law is that only the intent to commit a crime is judicially noteworthy. You and I have certainly felt emotions that, in another, might have caused an intent to form; we've all been washed over with avarice or rage at some time or another. This is what motive, stripped of intent, looks like. It's certainly not pretty, but neither is it the sort of thing the cops and the courts have to worry about. It is the formation of an intent to commit a crime that separates a criminal from the rest of us; this is the final link in the causal chain leading from the beginning of the universe to the crime itself, and the first one in which the crime's actual form appears (in the criminal's mind). A man may be born and commit no crime. He may marry a woman and commit no crime. He may catch her with another man and commit no crime. He may grow angry and jealous and commit no crime. But when he forms the intent to kill her, only then does he become dangerous.
Now, I'm not dismissing motive completely, of course. It's important from an evidentiary perspective, since there's something very fishy about a criminal case that involves an intent leaping out of nowhere into the suspect's head. But once the facts are in order, it's not something that ought to be punished, both because of the freedom of conscience I've talked about in previous posts, and also simply because it wouldn't be punished in a vacuum.
Got it.
But, wouldn't it be "dealt with" in a vacuum? In an implicit sense, motivations undergo constant societal oppression. In an explicit sense, we put some folks into therapy so that their motivations are coerced into avoiding malicious intent.
I agree that it shouldn't be punished. But is rehabilitative therapy a "punishment?" Shouldn't we recognize a crime as racially motivated so we can fix the criminal's mind?
But, wouldn't it be "dealt with" in a vacuum? In an implicit sense, motivations undergo constant societal oppression. In an explicit sense, we put some folks into therapy so that their motivations are coerced into avoiding malicious intent.
I agree that it shouldn't be punished. But is rehabilitative therapy a "punishment?" Shouldn't we recognize a crime as racially motivated so we can fix the criminal's mind?
If it could be demonstrated that racism - actually, for this thread, let's stick with homophobia - is a psychiatric affliction, sure. But I don't believe that it's in the APA diagnostic handbook any more than homosexuality is.
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If it could be demonstrated that racism - actually, for this thread, let's stick with homophobia - is a psychiatric affliction, sure.
What is the difference between a psychiatric affliction and a mindset, and why does it matter here? Using therapy to rehabilitate someone from his irrational, malicious and damaging mindsets is not contingent upon official APA recognition of those mindsets as diseases.
What is the difference between a psychiatric affliction and a mindset, and why does it matter here? Using therapy to rehabilitate someone from his irrational, malicious and damaging mindsets is not contingent upon official APA recognition of those mindsets as diseases.
Don't go there. When my government starts compelling sound-minded people to undergo treatments aimed at changing their freely-formed opinions, that's when I'll be following ljossberir to his desert island.
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Don't go there. When my government starts compelling sound-minded people to undergo treatments aimed at changing their freely-formed opinions, that's when I'll be following ljossberir to his desert island.
I don't think "rehabilitating convicted criminals" constitutes a slippery slope toward BNW. Should prisons be mere holding cells, because any sort of coercion infriges upon freedom?
And in any case, don't criminals give up the right to freedom? Isn't that the whole point of a prison -- oppression to benefit both society and the criminal's social potential?
I don't mind biting the bullet on oppression. It can be and often is justified.
They give up the right to freedom in a very circumscribed and controlled manner. Someone with a parking ticket has only given up their right to a couple hundred dollars of property. Someone convicted of robbery has only given up their right to a few years of their life. Convicts' being in the custody of the state does not give the state carte blanche to do whatever it wants with them.
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They give up the right to freedom in a very circumscribed and controlled manner. Someone with a parking ticket has only given up their right to a couple hundred dollars of property. Someone convicted of robbery has only given up their right to a few years of their life. Convicts' being in the custody of the state does not give the state carte blanche to do whatever it wants with them.
Okay, back to this:
Should prisons be mere holding cells (rather than also rehabilitation centers), because any sort of coercion infriges upon freedom?
Given that the idea of rehabilitating those who (sanely) don't want to be rehabilitated is a joke anyway, there's really no reason to coerce, much less a reason that would actually outweigh the reasons not to. That said, I'm all in favor of more resources for self-improvement being made available to prisoners.
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Given that the idea of rehabilitating those who (sanely) don't want to be rehabilitated is a joke anyway, there's really no reason to coerce, much less a reason that would actually outweigh the reasons not to.
You seem to be tearing down the quite useful distinction between (biological) sex and (psychological) gender, and I'm a bit baffled as to why.
Because it's an insufficient nomenclatural answer to a complex question.
That "sex" means biology and "gender" means society or psychology is a useful distinction for one good purpose: pointing out that we have a sex/gender system, which includes not only male and female bodies, but that there is also a lot of ideology and tradition and sentiment surrounding them. It brings the idea of sex or gender away from a set of black-and-white types, by which males and females are instances of largely uniform traits.
The distinction is at best a first step, though. I will note the following:
1. Sex or gender "type" terms such as male sex, female sex, masculine gender, and feminine gender are relatively imprecise terms. They refer to patterns, patterns which are reducible to smaller sets of traits, most of which are also reducible. For instance, one's biological sex isn't equivocal to one's chromosone pairs: you can have XY cells and be otherwise female, or XX cells and be otherwise male. Similarly, biological sex isn't equivocal to one's reproductive organs, because you can have testes and XX chromones, or have testes and female secondary sex characteristics like breasts and a female shape. Or you can have ovaries and lack a uterus or vaginal canal.
This is what I meant when I said it's a typology. Biologically speaking, it's a whole bunch of traits that work like legos or building blocks. The most common combinations of these blocks are assigned types: female, and male. Socially and psychologically, the most common combinations of memetic and personality traits are assigned types: masculine and feminine. This functions pretty well, at least much of the time. But the important thing to remember is that these traits can occur in different combinations.
2. Biological sex terms (like male, female, and to an extent man, woman, boy, and girl) and non-biological gender terms (like masculine, feminine, and to an extent man, woman, boy, and girl) have a much blurrier distinction than is often intended when the two are used separately. If a man - one who has male genetic, reproductive, and physical traits, and is self-identified as male - has a feminine personality, we don't call that person a "woman" in honor of a feminine gender. We just call that person a man, a male. This refers to both his gender and his physiological sex: no special distinction is made between his being male, and a man, and having a personality that is feminine.
Likewise, if someone has a prejudice against women and girls because of what they see as annoyingly girly behavior, or with girly behavior in males, we don't call that "genderism" because it's mostly to do with behavior. We still call it sexism.
Really, the line between a psychological gender trait and a biological sex trait isn't that clear to begin with. Of course, that's because the line between psychology and biology isn't that clear. If the female type includes a common combination of traits having to do with the brain and the hormones, that's biological. It means something psychological and most likely social, too. This is one of the reasons why using sex as biology/gender as psychology isn't particularly useful when it comes to talking about transgender people.
3. There need to be more, and more specific, terms, at least for the purpose of detailed discussion if not everyday conversation. The ones I volunteer, and use, are reproductive sex (such as reproductive male, reproductive female), genetic sex, neurological sex, and even endocrine sex, more detailed than simply saying biological sex. Personal gender identity and social gender identity are more specific than simply gender. Android and gynoid are especially useful: they refer to physiological phenotypy as a whole without including genotype or neurology. An android physiology is that which is commonly understood to be male, with male reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics, and a gynoid physiology is that which is commonly understood to be female, with female reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics. These are more detailed than simply saying male and female. One can be a mixture of gynoid and android, of course. In such cases, one might be aptly called an androgynoid.
To give an example, an accurate and detailed expression I might use to describe myself is an android female, or perhaps android woman/girl. In this way, the broad terms "female" and "woman" and "girl" are used to describe the person in a complete sense, accounting for all dimensions at once under an appropriate label. But the specifier android is a physiological description. It's better than saying "male woman" or "male-bodied girl" or "male-born" or "biologically male woman." Using male or man, even in the past tense, would be misleading and inaccurate. Also, I do not know that I am really biologically male in every sense, and it's very unlikely that I am. I do know, though, that I am android.
Most men are android males, and most women are gynoid females. There are, however, gynoid males and android females, and there are androgynoid females and androgynoid males.
This also helps do away with the idea that a person changes sex. You can become more android and less gynoid, or become more gynoid and less android, and become an androgynoid. But just as one can't really change one's genetic sex, the overall or "complete person" sex/gender doesn't change. I am now the gender and sex I always have been and I always will be that, regardless of how my physiology changes. If trans means "change," the change is actually in social identity, and change from android to androgynoid. It is not in going from male to female, which does not really happen as far as I know.
If I want to be more specific than calling someone and android, I might say reproductive male for clarity (rep-male and rep-female for short). Male and female type terms are very useful for describing individual sets of traits.
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All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
Because it's an insufficient nomenclatural answer to a complex question.
Even though I can argue at some length that they blur into each other when examined closely, I do not toss the distinction between the terms utilitarianism and deontology out the window. They serve where they're needed.
Likewise, if someone has a prejudice against women and girls because of what they see as annoyingly girly behavior, or with girly behavior in males, we don't call that "genderism" because it's mostly to do with behavior. We still call it sexism.
Homophobia need not have anything to do with fear. And female, any decent feminist will argue, is diminutive of nothing. The etymologies of words often have little or nothing to do with their present-day usage. As far as these things go, using sexism to describe what might be termed "genderism" is hardly a stretch at all.
Really, the line between a psychological gender trait and a biological sex trait isn't that clear to begin with. Of course, that's because the line between psychology and biology isn't that clear. If the female type includes a common combination of traits having to do with the brain and the hormones, that's biological. It means something psychological and most likely social, too. This is one of the reasons why using sex as biology/gender as psychology isn't particularly useful when it comes to talking about transgender people.
To give an example, an accurate and detailed expression I might use to describe myself is an android female, or perhaps android woman/girl. In this way, the broad terms "female" and "woman" and "girl" are used to describe the person in a complete sense, accounting for all dimensions at once under an appropriate label. But the specifier android is a physiological description. It's better than saying "male woman" or "male-bodied girl" or "male-born" or "biologically male woman." Using male or man, even in the past tense, would be misleading and inaccurate. Also, I do not know that I am really biologically male in every sense, and it's very unlikely that I am. I do know, though, that I am android.
Most men are android males, and most women are gynoid females. There are, however, gynoid males and android females, and there are androgynoid females and androgynoid males.
Right: sex/gender distinction. You've thought up a new terminology for it, but there is nothing here that the old terminology couldn't handle.
This also helps do away with the idea that a person changes sex. You can become more android and less gynoid, or become more gynoid and less android, and become an androgynoid. But just as one can't really change one's genetic sex, the overall or "complete person" sex/gender doesn't change. I am now the gender and sex I always have been and I always will be that, regardless of how my physiology changes. If trans means "change," the change is actually in social identity, and change from android to androgynoid. It is not in going from male to female, which does not really happen as far as I know.
I don't want this to turn too much into a discussion of you, but this paragraph does set off warning bells in my mind that there might be something a wee bit self-justificatory about all this. Whenever I talk to transgendered people (about their transgenderism, that is), the insistence that they've always been this gender always seems to come just a bit too vehemently. I'm no psychologist, much less an expert on dysphorias, but as a philosopher I like to think I've been trained to spot dogmas when I see them. And the fact that this is dogma piques my philosophical and psychological curiosity. Delusion? Defense mechanism? Social indoctrination by the transgender community? The fact that such a community exists, and seems to have written everything there is on the Internet about their condition, is quite frustrating to a casual seeker of knowledge seeking the science of it. But now I'm just venting.
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Even though I can argue at some length that they blur into each other when examined closely, I do not toss the distinction between the terms utilitarianism and deontology out the window. They serve where they're needed.
What's your point? Sex and gender serve when they're needed, too.
And the relation isn't the same. Utilitarianism and deontology are not often interchangeable, and the distinction between them is not fuzzy and prone to causing confusion should that distinction ever come to be looked at in detail.
Homophobia need not have anything to do with fear. And female, any decent feminist will argue, is diminutive of nothing. The etymologies of words often have little or nothing to do with their present-day usage. As far as these things go, using sexism to describe what might be termed "genderism" is hardly a stretch at all.
Really not my point. The point is that psychological-gender and biological-sex is only a sufficient distinction in cases where the classifications psychological and biological are not too broad to be informative and the line between them is obvious enough to be informative.
I think you're dodging my argument.
Right: sex/gender distinction. You've thought up a new terminology for it, but there is nothing here that the old terminology couldn't handle.
Wait . . . are you serious? The entire idea is new terminology. What exactly did you think I was talking about?
And, no, the previous terms couldn't handle it. They are far too blunt and inconsistently applied for it. Why resist refinement of this terminology? You don't even seem to considering if there is any utility gained by it.
EDIT: It's not even the same idea with different words, because I'm not trying to force this biology vs. psychology business. I'm not sure why you insist that the the imprecision of those categories is so irrelevant.
I don't want this to turn too much into a discussion of you, but this paragraph does set off warning bells in my mind that there might be something a wee bit self-justificatory about all this.
Why? Because it solves the label problem that exists with "sex changes"? Because it creates clearly compartmentalized factors to look at, instead of blindly applying a false dichotomy in what really is greedy reductionism?
Whenever I talk to transgendered people (about their transgenderism, that is), the insistence that they've always been this gender always seems to come just a bit too vehemently. I'm no psychologist, much less an expert on dysphorias, but as a philosopher I like to think I've been trained to spot dogmas when I see them. And the fact that this is dogma piques my philosophical and psychological curiosity.
You may have to go into more detail about that, but I'm fairly sure you missed something. Do you expect me to find your impression of "a bit too vehement," especially when you've already voiced unease or something with transness, to be particularly compelling?
My guess is that you interpret this as "I've always been transgender, it's not a choice, you can't control me," etc, etc. A rabid insistence against nurture-theorisms.
I think you're using sloppy psychology, and as you say you are no psychologist. For one, I subscribe to dual inheritence theory anyway. And If what you mean is that trans people who know claim to have always had trans feelings, I have trouble seeing how your suspicion is reasonable. And your jump to call it a dogma is likewise somewhat telling. I think you're erecting a stalwart system of pervasive memes where there is none.
In my case, I'm not speaking subjectively. I am speaking about these terms in an objective sense. I'm saying that whatever my (to use me as an example again, and only an example - I'm not inviting you to make comment on anything about me more than what I myself use in the example) sex/gender happens to be, while my subjective experience may be a key sign of what it is, if that experience is an indicator of a biologically embedded characteristic (as the research suggests), then there is no changing from one sex or gender to another. Changes in incidental phenotypy do not alter the non-incidental phenotypy that was apparently enough to motivate those changes.
And if it's not neurologically embedded, but the subjective experience has been persistent since an early age and has been enough to significantly shape childhood and adolescent experiences, then "always been this way" is still a pretty apt description.
Delusion? Defense mechanism? Social indoctrination by the transgender community? The fact that such a community exists, and seems to have written everything there is on the Internet about their condition, is quite frustrating to a casual seeker of knowledge seeking the science of it. But now I'm just venting.
You are, and it's not getting either you or me anywhere.
I'll be blunt. This is awful sociology on top of poor psychology. You do realize there is no actual "transgender community," don't you? We don't have meetings or newsletters, or any other form of organization.
This is really a pretty amazing reaction. You're frustrated because . . . transgender people are providing the majority of the insight into their transness. Huh. They're not even giving the majority of theories or discussion - I trust my experience more than your word on that. I guess I can see why you'd be looking out for bias, but consider. Trans people absolutely know the subjective experience of being trans many times better than cisgender people do. As I said, "this subjective experience has persisted as long as I've been able to note it" is a pretty normal, dependable assertion to be making. It's hardly the collusive vitriol that you seem to be visualizing. So you choose to call it dogma, because *gasp* all those who have this experience describe the experience in the same way?
It has become evident to me over the years that most cisgender people have trouble processing with the whole gender identity hullabaloo with trans people is even about. I have a lot of explanations as to why this may be, but put simply I think the confusion comes from not realizing that the "trans feelings" originate from what is primarily a physical, bodily experience. When someone says "I feel like a male/like I should be a male," this is an expression. There aren't currently linguistic tools fine enough to put it better. There isn't actually any comprehensive maleness/femaleness "sensation" that one can experience.
The experience is non-transferable. But I have seen intellectual comprehension on this issue flourish and flounder on the back of whether or not a party knows enough to realize that that's what it is they're talking about: a visceral, almost concrete experience. When someone start to go on about social indoctrination (from a wispy, abstract trans community, no less), or introjected images of female or male privileges as a coping mechanism for infant needs and whatnot, they start to lose me. It's the weakness of insight psychology to go off on a misleading trail of theory that ends up not being effectual.
This is why it's absolutely critical to understand that the line between what is physical and what is psychological is extremely fuzzy. You may provide an argument that the fuzziness doesn't matter most of the time and the terms are still perfectly functional as they are. If you do, you will be correct, and you will also be saying something irrelevant to this argument. I'm saying that in this particular instance (surely in others, but I'm not interested right now in making a list), the overlap is more significant than the distinction, or is at least as vital. In any case, it's a false dichotomy. The two sectors inform and affect each other.
You want to talk about science? It's a scientific position that causes me to feel very doubtful of any attempt to reduce the trans situation to "that gender identity is part of your psychology (something still infused with mysticism), but not your body. It's nothing to do with your body or your biological sex, which is much clearer." Scientifically, psychologically, this is messy and glib and weak. Biologically, it's at the least questionable.
If you want to be serious about this topic, then you need to be able to work with a better repertoire of nomenclature and analyses, rather than fall back on tools that are fine with other tasks but not delicate enough for this one.
Over time I've provided a good number of links to resources on the research and exploration of the trans phenomenon. I really don't want to hear about how it's so clouded because of validation-hungry transsexuals screaming their agendas in your face. It's all easily accessible. I can supply more resources, if you want. And you can google most of it with a bit of time. Though given what seems to be suspicion on your part, I wonder what you are willing to accept as "the science of it" as oppposed to something biased and dismissable.
The most supported theory is the one I subscribe to, and it's pretty plain and easy to understand. Because we're talking about behavior and brains and all that, there is of course much evidence but little proof. However, this isn't even a case where there's maybe, kinda, it could be something based by evidence. The evidence isn't hard to interpret, although I can see numerous reasons why any party might not like the interpretation.
And if it turns out to be incorrect, oh well. I don't feel the validity of myself really rides on whether or not it's "natural" or "biological."
Perhaps the suspicion you feel is irrational rather than rational, in response to a complex set of emotional and identity issues you're encountering from other people? That wouldn't be very strange.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
Really not my point. The point is that psychological-gender and biological-sex is only a sufficient distinction in cases where the classifications psychological and biological are not too broad to be informative and the line between them is obvious enough to be informative.
Cases like... this one? Honestly, Nis was making a very simple and generalized assertion, and you jumped him for it.
And, no, the previous terms couldn't handle it. They are far too blunt and inconsistently applied for it. Why resist refinement of this terminology? You don't even seem to considering if there is any utility gained by it.
In technical discussions, you have the luxury of defining your vocabulary and fine-tuning it to your purposes. But the language of casual conversation resists reform, and attempts to force it only cause confusion and incoherence. The gender/sex distinction works. People actually use it. It may not be perfect, but it's what we've got - and I submit that even the more fine-tuned language ought, for ease of comprehension, to start with it as a base. Don't reinvent the wheel here.
EDIT: It's not even the same idea with different words, because I'm not trying to force this biology vs. psychology business.
Nor am I; it's more like "anatomy vs. psychology".
Here's a Cliff's Notes version of the conversation as I read it:
Nis: Changing one's hair color does not change one's eye color. Mamelon: Hair color is more than just the color of one's hair. Blinking Spirit: Buh? Mamelon: Well, there are many different hair colors besides "very dark" and "very light", and many different eye colors between "very dark" and "very light" too. Some people even have eyes or hair that is a mix of different colors! And there is also the matter of skin color. So really, "hair color" and "eye color" are vague and misleading terms. Blinking Spirit: Uh... no they aren't.
All the complicated ways in which human sexuality can be expressed don't change the fundamental fact that people have (a) sex organs and (b) a mental gender identity. These two facets of a person's existence may not be the same values, or even be binary values at all, but barring serious injury or impairment, they're both there. And I hope you will agree that as categories, they're clear and distinct; the biological continuum between psychology and anatomy does not invalidate the categories of biology and anatomy.
I'm not sure why you insist that the the imprecision of those categories is so irrelevant.
It's regrettable for these purposes that when dealing solely with the cisgender norm, "sex" and "gender" can be used interchangeably. But that's the English language for you. Besides, Nis obviously knew what he was talking about, I know what he's talking about, and you know what he's talking about. Imprecision disappears when everybody knows they're being precise. When I'm in a philosophy seminar, the fact that "utilitarian" can mean "pragmatically functional" (and even within the field has a host of different variations!) does not especially impede our understanding of each other.
You may have to go into more detail about that, but I'm fairly sure you missed something. Do you expect me to find your impression of "a bit too vehement," especially when you've already voiced unease or something with transness, to be particularly compelling?
You're right, I am uneasy in a number of ways about transness. But I don't think you can accuse me of being hesitant to accept trans people's subjective claims. It is the form of this particular claim, which I have observed on multiple occasions, that has attracted my attention. It's been an insistence, a protestation, that jumps out from the rest of what the person has to say in its force. This is, of course, an anecdotal observation; one might even call it "subjective" itself. But nevertheless, I find it interesting, and am frustrated that the "why" of it - if there is one - is so obscure. It's like becoming curious about why black people have light-colored palms and soles, and only being able to find information about the Civil Rights Movement. I hope this clarifies matters.
Now, let's just pretend the rest of our little misunderstanding never happened. Some of the things we said are unworthy of us.
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I do think that gender is an abstraction of sex, but it's qualitatively different than what you're talking about. Perhaps you'll see what I mean as you read the rest of the post.
Cases like... this one? Honestly, Nis was making a very simple and generalized assertion, and you jumped him for it.
No, that's not true. For one, I didn't jump on him, I was just incredulous with the way he tried to reduce it. The whole point that I am making and have been making is against the assumption you're taking for granted here. It's being assumed that this is such a case where the overlap doesn't matter, and that's wrong. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. Please read the rest of my explanation to see what that means.
In technical discussions, you have the luxury of defining your vocabulary and fine-tuning it to your purposes. But the language of casual conversation resists reform, and attempts to force it only cause confusion and incoherence.
. . . Hm.
Quote from Mamelon »
3. There need to be more, and more specific, terms, at least for the purpose of detailed discussion if not everyday conversation.
In conversation, we still talk about people as being male or female based on what seems to best match a person, even if the person isn't easily classified by the most common usages of those labels. I'll explain more below.
Quote from Blinking Spirit »
The gender/sex distinction works. People actually use it. It may not be perfect, but it's what we've got - and I submit that even the more fine-tuned language ought, for ease of comprehension, to start with it as a base. Don't reinvent the wheel here.
See below.
Nor am I; it's more like "anatomy vs. psychology".
Here's a Cliff's Notes version of the conversation as I read it:
Nis: Changing one's hair color does not change one's eye color. Mamelon: Hair color is more than just the color of one's hair. Blinking Spirit: Buh? Mamelon: Well, there are many different hair colors besides "very dark" and "very light", and many different eye colors between "very dark" and "very light" too. Some people even have eyes or hair that is a mix of different colors! And there is also the matter of skin color. So really, "hair color" and "eye color" are vague and misleading terms. Blinking Spirit: Uh... no they aren't.
All the complicated ways in which human sexuality can be expressed don't change the fundamental fact that people have (a) sex organs and (b) a mental gender identity. These two facets of a person's existence may not be the same values, or even be binary values at all, but barring serious injury or impairment, they're both there. And I hope you will agree that as categories, they're clear and distinct; the biological continuum between psychology and anatomy does not invalidate the categories of biology and anatomy.
This is what you're missing. I never said "sex identity has nothing to do with physiology," or that anatomy and psychology aren't different, or anything like that. Here's the mock-up dialogue of how I saw it:
Nis: People have color types. Changing hair color doesn't change one's color type, because the eye color is still the same and can't be changed. Mamelon: Well, yes, changing hair color doesn't change eye color. But one's color type isn't always determined by eye color. Blinking Spirit: What? People still have eye color, Mamelon. Eye color isn't the same as hair color. Are you saying that color type is determined by hair color? Mamelon: No, I'm saying that in some cases, you need to look at more than one coloration, whether eye or hair, to understand color type. Blinking Spirit: People still have an eye color, and it's not the same as hair color. Mamelon: Yes . . .
The eye and hair color analogy isn't complex enough to really fit the idea I'm talking about, which actually serves to illustrate pretty well what I'm getting at.
To use gender and sex, the assumption was that transgenderness is about mental gender, but that physical changes are mainly cosmetic and don't change the fundamental physical type, the physical sex. What I am pointing out is that it's not that simple. Whether sex is physical or gender is mental, it absolutely is not enough to recognize that with this particular issue.
That's because the state of being trans is not just about mental gender. It is also, to a specific degree, about physicality: and I don't mean that the feelings are concerning anatomical sex, or about a change in anatomy. What I'm saying is that, as far as we can tell based on the evidence, trans people aren't exactly male or female to begin with. They are reproductively male or female, that's true, but reproductive sex isn't equivocal to this larger idea of biological sex.
Nis said that changes in reproductive anatomy don't change the genetic sex - that is also true, but genetic sex is also not equivocal to biological sex. Not even all cisgender people have a genetic sex that matches their reproductive sex.
It's somewhat less apparent than with those who have visible anatomical intersex states. With trans people, it's most likely to do with neurological wiring, which is not easily measured but still very influential. I'm trying to avoid talking about "trimorphisms" or whatnot in order not to confuse it further, but it's difficult to step around. We don't have third, fourth, or fifth linguistic gender categories. We only have the two - male/masculine and female/feminine - so we have to work with what we have.
Because of that, the next best thing is to use a modular system that references the existing typology. Thus, I break down the different sets of traits so they can denote separate details. Since we don't have singular labels for the less common combinations of traits, the way to identify them is to describe the components of those combinations.
I'll use androgen insensitivity syndrome as an example again. A woman with complete (as opposed to partial) androgen insensitivity syndrome has XY chromosones and has testes, but not a full male reproductive system. Other than this, she looks and functions just like other women - it may be well into adulthood before she ever realizes that she is intersexual.
Some people may say that this person is male because she has XY chromosones and has testes (even though the testes function differently than most). Others call this person female, because her general phenotypy, the aspects of her phenotypy that are most relevant in day to day life, are that of a female. And in the medical community, this person would be regarded as an intersex female, not an intersex male. There are still those who insist that she's "technically" a male, which is not only a rigid and dogmatic application of the sex typology, but it's simply incorrect because "technically," she's intersex.
It's the same, in principle, with trans people. There is some trait that causes them to not match up to the patterns.
Quote from Blinking Spirit »
It's regrettable for these purposes that when dealing solely with the cisgender norm, "sex" and "gender" can be used interchangeably. But that's the English language for you. Besides, Nis obviously knew what he was talking about, I know what he's talking about, and you know what he's talking about. Imprecision disappears when everybody knows they're being precise.
This is what I'm trying to tell you. I am not splitting hairs. I am saying that the original description of events is fundamentally, technically, terminologically incorrect. It probably doesn't look like it is to you or him, but that's because both you and he simply aren't informed about this. And don't take that as a insult.
Nis implicated that because a trans person's genetic sex didn't change, they aren't "really" the sex they identify with, even after treatments. My comment to him was, in short, that it doesn't really work that way. From a scientific point of view, there is no one single factor that decides what one's true sex is. The reason for this is because the very idea of sex identity is about a pattern of combined traits. Individual traits can be identified by which pattern they match up with - i.e. male reproductive system means the reproductive system that matches with the trait pattern that's called male. But having such a trait doesn't mean you have the rest of the pattern. Trans people are not "really" the sex that they were assigned at birth, either.
If sex means a set of traits instead of one trait, then trying to define an individual's sex using one trait is double-speak, intentional or otherwise.
In discussions of technical terms, android and gynoid are neat words that refer to reproductive type, endocrine functioning, and secondary characteristics. They're more specific than "biological sex," which also includes genetic sex and a few other things, but they're more concise and practical than having to note "reproductive system, plus hormone levels, plus appearance, etc." With the intersex woman above, she's mostly gynoid, with some android aspects. A trans person can be completely gynoid or completely android, and can have a genetic sex to match. But android and gynoid aren't the only aspects of phenotypy that are sex traits.
It may be that any gender identity is totally learned behavior - evidence strongly contradicts that it is, but it's theoretically possible. If this were true, and gender identity were incidental to biological sex traits, then I could see one arguing that trans people are completely male or female physically but with a different psychological gender identity - in such a case, the distinction really would be precise. That just isn't where the signs are pointing, though.
I'm also not saying that a transwoman is completely female or that a transman is completely male. Plenty of trans people don't like to be thought of as intersex or anything, because it may sound like they can't be a "normal" man or woman. But technically, it's easier to think of it that way. In everyday talk, though, one calls a transman male and a transwoman female for the reason we would call an intersex person male or female based on which was more relevant to them. Neither term fits exactly, but in daily life it doesn't have to. And in everyday situations, one's chromosones or the exact workings of one's reproductive system are a lot less relevant than the other factors which lead to social and personal identity.
I'll let you in on a little secret. I don't actually think of myself as "female in every way that matters" or "just like any other girl." I'm really not, and much of the time, I don't want to be. But I'm also not "basically male." Neither term is totally adequate, but I go with the one that is more generally descriptive. And in most situations, unless it's something about reproductive systems, that one is female. I don't even think there is something about my personality that "makes me a girl." But it is the one that my instincts point me towards. Going with that has worked for me.
It may seem strange to say this when it appears to be based on a scientific explanation that I wasn't aware of before the fact. Since it's not strictly about behavior, or feminine personalities or feminine interests, and since it's not about wanting to become someone else, that tells me that those instincts must mean something.
What label problem? In the course of an operation, a transgendered person changes sex but not gender.
Well, in genital reassignment surgery, they change certain aspects of reproductive sex, yes. With hormones and other treatments, some of the sexual phenotypy changes. A transperson is not, however, someone who was unambiguously male who went to being unambiguously female, or who went from being unambiguously female to being unambiguously male. In either stage they're still an admixture, of sorts, even though the proportions change.
When talking about trans or intersex people, there is a language problem. Blinking Spirit, as you have little direct experience or background concerning it, this is something you wouldn't know. As someone who does, I'm just letting you know that language issues come up often.
Example. Let's say my mother is trying to explain my situation to a friend or relative. If she can't think of a better way of putting it than "a boy who wants to be a girl," then that gives the friend or relative the wrong idea. I'm not a boy who wants to be a girl, and such an expression can be misleading. At the least, it suggests ideas about me wanting something that girls have, or wanting to fulfill a female role, or thinking that it's better to be a girl, or something like that. And unfortunately, she doesn't know a better way to put it.
She could try saying "s/he's male, but thinks of herself as a female." That's not really accurate, either. How does one "think of oneself as a female" while being a male? Does that mean I identify with feminine behaviors? I don't, necessarily.
It's the same problem when someone describes their experience as feeling like "a man trapped in a woman's body" or "a woman trapped in a man's body." This expression can kind of give a cisgender person an idea of what it feels like. But many, many people find it confusing. Some critics even use this to assert that trans people are commandeering something. Like I said, there isn't really a "maleness" sensation or a "femaleness" sensation.
And any time when someone is not exactly male or female, not totally a man or a woman in the traditional sense, there is a language issue. As I mentioned before, there aren't third gender pronouns, or mixed sex words. We just have to use the language that's available to us, and adapt. That's why terms like transman, transwoman, genderqueer, etc, even exist.
EDIT:
It was enlightening when first a trans person said, "Wait a minute. I'm not a woman trapped in a man's body - this isn't a man's body. It's my body."
No one said anything about dichotomies. Only distinctions.
A mental/physical dichotomy is implicit when it's said that someone has sex A but gender B. In reality, it's closer to having sex AB, or C, or whatever.
You're right, I am uneasy in a number of ways about transness.
In what way? It could be you have one of the same kinds of common misconceptions that I'm trying to make people aware of.
For instance, I get the impression that you think transness is like body dysmorphic disorder. There is a superficial similarity, but it's not a psychological similarity. Body dysmorphia is an anxiety disorder; it's a type of obsessive compulsion. Plastic surgery tends to not help and even aggravate the anxiety.
Trans feelings don't stem from anxieties, even though anxieties can arise from them. Unlike with body dysmorphia, physical alterations tend to improve a trans person's functioning and quality of life.
But I don't think you can accuse me of being hesitant to accept trans people's subjective claims. It is the form of this particular claim, which I have observed on multiple occasions, that has attracted my attention. It's been an insistence, a protestation, that jumps out from the rest of what the person has to say in its force. This is, of course, an anecdotal observation; one might even call it "subjective" itself. But nevertheless, I find it interesting, and am frustrated that the "why" of it - if there is one - is so obscure.
Maybe because we're constantly having to defend ourselves? Constantly being made to justify ourselves to others? Constantly having to deal with others poking around in our psychology, invading personal privacy, and levying all sorts of theories and accusations at us? Constantly hearing about how uncomfortable people are with us? You may not realize how far that goes. If my experience is an indication, then in general many of those who aren't transgender are more willing to plaster any explanation over us except the one that we give, even when it's grossly unreasonable.
Our subjective experience of our own bodies and selves is discounted. It absolutely is. I'm not trying to be unduly abrasive here, but it feels like you're looking for a reason to see this a conspiracy or something without considering why one might feel they have to defend that. Why that in particular is something that's questioned and needled at. And really, I haven't felt that the always-been-this-way thing really is that much of a stressed matter, at least no more than with any GLBTI people.
I'm still puzzled as to how it can be called a dogma. That's quite a leap. If it's something that almost all trans people seem to think they have to justify and defend, that's not surprising to me. In the post of mine about which you mentioned this, I wasn't actually defending it (I was talking about something else entirely, which I think I've clarified), but nonetheless, I'm tired of having to defend it. I'm frustrated with having to explain myself all the time. I'm curious as to why it's such an issue.
It's like becoming curious about why black people have light-colored palms and soles, and only being able to find information about the Civil Rights Movement. I hope this clarifies matters.
I do understand what you mean, but surely you can see why they'd be entangled in both cases, right? With trans folks, there's still a lot of contention about terminology, what's important to know, and the value of the data and the theories drawn from them.
But if you want objective data and not personal accounts, there should be plenty of places on the web alone to find them. It'd take some poking, and perhaps you just haven't known where to look.
Now, let's just pretend the rest of our little misunderstanding never happened. Some of the things we said are unworthy of us.
This has been a very long post to write, and I hope that I don't have to do it again. I'd appreciate it if you'd try to understand that I'm not talking down to you, I'm not trying to confuse you, but I'm trying to explain something that you admittedly don't know about. It's a tough balance, trying to tell what somebody already knows and what needs to be broken down. If you don't understand something, or don't see where I got something, then tell me you don't know what I mean. It makes it easier for me to strike that balance. I want to make it simpler to understand.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
Having read these last lengthy posts, I personally am again confronted by the shadowy principle, or law, that I have only recently been able to acknowledge: sometimes the best we can do is to understand that we cannot understand. Imagination and analogy only get us so far. I will never know what it is like to be transgendered. For that matter, I will never know what it is like to be a woman. Or a black man. Or Chinese. Or...
...it doesn't matter. "Why are you doing X? Why are you responding to that stimulus in that way, when I personally would've done Y?" Sure, I have every right to ask such questions. But unless I am prepared to make the case that X is immoral or unethical, I have no reason not to take the answer given at face value. If I cannot understand that answer, it is rather presumptuous of me to assume that there must be an answer deeper or other: that my confusion is to be blamed on the inability of another to articulate the truth about him/herself, rather than on the limitations of my own imperfect empathy.
It's hard indeed to be comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity; but true peace of mind eludes us until we are.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
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You know what i find interesting?
Some random things:
1. IF there was a gene that caused people to be predisposed to homosexuality, you would think it would eventually "breed out", simply due to artificial selection which is the paradox of having the gene anyway. Unless, everyone had this predisposition, and there was a trigger that caused it to be expressed. Now, this leads to the frightining possibility that homosexuality could be repressed, or expressed by a drug.
2. My personal opinion? I try to adhere to my own personal morals never to discriminate, based on sexuality. But, i find my personal bias's are usually based on people trying to adhere to a stereotype - predominately one that i find irritating - not because of the homosexuality that is the nature of the person - but the stereotype itself.
I, as usual, am probably completely off topic. Sorry.
[/bryspoon exits, with little grace]
How can I put this? It's analogous to the functional difference between the hammer of a gun and the bullet. You need both to shoot someone, but they lie at different points on the causal chain. The hammer causes the bullet to fire, and the bullet's firing causes the victim to get shot. The motive causes the intent, and the intent causes the action.
Also worth consideration is the fact that the spectrum of possible motives is blurry and many-hued, a nightmarish continuum of all the human vices, whereas intent is relatively simple and clear cut, being strictly a matter of what state of affairs the criminal desired to bring about through his or her actions. At the risk of screwing up the analogy past all coherence, it's as if the gun had an infinite number of hammers that could fire the bullet, but only one bullet.
And the reason this difference is so important for the law is that only the intent to commit a crime is judicially noteworthy. You and I have certainly felt emotions that, in another, might have caused an intent to form; we've all been washed over with avarice or rage at some time or another. This is what motive, stripped of intent, looks like. It's certainly not pretty, but neither is it the sort of thing the cops and the courts have to worry about. It is the formation of an intent to commit a crime that separates a criminal from the rest of us; this is the final link in the causal chain leading from the beginning of the universe to the crime itself, and the first one in which the crime's actual form appears (in the criminal's mind). A man may be born and commit no crime. He may marry a woman and commit no crime. He may catch her with another man and commit no crime. He may grow angry and jealous and commit no crime. But when he forms the intent to kill her, only then does he become dangerous.
Now, I'm not dismissing motive completely, of course. It's important from an evidentiary perspective, since there's something very fishy about a criminal case that involves an intent leaping out of nowhere into the suspect's head. But once the facts are in order, it's not something that ought to be punished, both because of the freedom of conscience I've talked about in previous posts, and also simply because it wouldn't be punished in a vacuum.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Got it.
But, wouldn't it be "dealt with" in a vacuum? In an implicit sense, motivations undergo constant societal oppression. In an explicit sense, we put some folks into therapy so that their motivations are coerced into avoiding malicious intent.
I agree that it shouldn't be punished. But is rehabilitative therapy a "punishment?" Shouldn't we recognize a crime as racially motivated so we can fix the criminal's mind?
If it could be demonstrated that racism - actually, for this thread, let's stick with homophobia - is a psychiatric affliction, sure. But I don't believe that it's in the APA diagnostic handbook any more than homosexuality is.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
What is the difference between a psychiatric affliction and a mindset, and why does it matter here? Using therapy to rehabilitate someone from his irrational, malicious and damaging mindsets is not contingent upon official APA recognition of those mindsets as diseases.
Don't go there. When my government starts compelling sound-minded people to undergo treatments aimed at changing their freely-formed opinions, that's when I'll be following ljossberir to his desert island.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I don't think "rehabilitating convicted criminals" constitutes a slippery slope toward BNW. Should prisons be mere holding cells, because any sort of coercion infriges upon freedom?
And in any case, don't criminals give up the right to freedom? Isn't that the whole point of a prison -- oppression to benefit both society and the criminal's social potential?
I don't mind biting the bullet on oppression. It can be and often is justified.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Okay, back to this:
Should prisons be mere holding cells (rather than also rehabilitation centers), because any sort of coercion infriges upon freedom?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
It doesn't have to be overt coercion.
However, I thought maybe this article might be worthy of discussion; http://www.colfaxrecord.com/detail/91429.html
That "sex" means biology and "gender" means society or psychology is a useful distinction for one good purpose: pointing out that we have a sex/gender system, which includes not only male and female bodies, but that there is also a lot of ideology and tradition and sentiment surrounding them. It brings the idea of sex or gender away from a set of black-and-white types, by which males and females are instances of largely uniform traits.
The distinction is at best a first step, though. I will note the following:
1. Sex or gender "type" terms such as male sex, female sex, masculine gender, and feminine gender are relatively imprecise terms. They refer to patterns, patterns which are reducible to smaller sets of traits, most of which are also reducible. For instance, one's biological sex isn't equivocal to one's chromosone pairs: you can have XY cells and be otherwise female, or XX cells and be otherwise male. Similarly, biological sex isn't equivocal to one's reproductive organs, because you can have testes and XX chromones, or have testes and female secondary sex characteristics like breasts and a female shape. Or you can have ovaries and lack a uterus or vaginal canal.
This is what I meant when I said it's a typology. Biologically speaking, it's a whole bunch of traits that work like legos or building blocks. The most common combinations of these blocks are assigned types: female, and male. Socially and psychologically, the most common combinations of memetic and personality traits are assigned types: masculine and feminine. This functions pretty well, at least much of the time. But the important thing to remember is that these traits can occur in different combinations.
2. Biological sex terms (like male, female, and to an extent man, woman, boy, and girl) and non-biological gender terms (like masculine, feminine, and to an extent man, woman, boy, and girl) have a much blurrier distinction than is often intended when the two are used separately. If a man - one who has male genetic, reproductive, and physical traits, and is self-identified as male - has a feminine personality, we don't call that person a "woman" in honor of a feminine gender. We just call that person a man, a male. This refers to both his gender and his physiological sex: no special distinction is made between his being male, and a man, and having a personality that is feminine.
Likewise, if someone has a prejudice against women and girls because of what they see as annoyingly girly behavior, or with girly behavior in males, we don't call that "genderism" because it's mostly to do with behavior. We still call it sexism.
Really, the line between a psychological gender trait and a biological sex trait isn't that clear to begin with. Of course, that's because the line between psychology and biology isn't that clear. If the female type includes a common combination of traits having to do with the brain and the hormones, that's biological. It means something psychological and most likely social, too. This is one of the reasons why using sex as biology/gender as psychology isn't particularly useful when it comes to talking about transgender people.
3. There need to be more, and more specific, terms, at least for the purpose of detailed discussion if not everyday conversation. The ones I volunteer, and use, are reproductive sex (such as reproductive male, reproductive female), genetic sex, neurological sex, and even endocrine sex, more detailed than simply saying biological sex. Personal gender identity and social gender identity are more specific than simply gender. Android and gynoid are especially useful: they refer to physiological phenotypy as a whole without including genotype or neurology. An android physiology is that which is commonly understood to be male, with male reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics, and a gynoid physiology is that which is commonly understood to be female, with female reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics. These are more detailed than simply saying male and female. One can be a mixture of gynoid and android, of course. In such cases, one might be aptly called an androgynoid.
To give an example, an accurate and detailed expression I might use to describe myself is an android female, or perhaps android woman/girl. In this way, the broad terms "female" and "woman" and "girl" are used to describe the person in a complete sense, accounting for all dimensions at once under an appropriate label. But the specifier android is a physiological description. It's better than saying "male woman" or "male-bodied girl" or "male-born" or "biologically male woman." Using male or man, even in the past tense, would be misleading and inaccurate. Also, I do not know that I am really biologically male in every sense, and it's very unlikely that I am. I do know, though, that I am android.
Most men are android males, and most women are gynoid females. There are, however, gynoid males and android females, and there are androgynoid females and androgynoid males.
This also helps do away with the idea that a person changes sex. You can become more android and less gynoid, or become more gynoid and less android, and become an androgynoid. But just as one can't really change one's genetic sex, the overall or "complete person" sex/gender doesn't change. I am now the gender and sex I always have been and I always will be that, regardless of how my physiology changes. If trans means "change," the change is actually in social identity, and change from android to androgynoid. It is not in going from male to female, which does not really happen as far as I know.
If I want to be more specific than calling someone and android, I might say reproductive male for clarity (rep-male and rep-female for short). Male and female type terms are very useful for describing individual sets of traits.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
Even though I can argue at some length that they blur into each other when examined closely, I do not toss the distinction between the terms utilitarianism and deontology out the window. They serve where they're needed.
Homophobia need not have anything to do with fear. And female, any decent feminist will argue, is diminutive of nothing. The etymologies of words often have little or nothing to do with their present-day usage. As far as these things go, using sexism to describe what might be termed "genderism" is hardly a stretch at all.
It sounds like you're playing with greedy reductionism here.
Right: sex/gender distinction. You've thought up a new terminology for it, but there is nothing here that the old terminology couldn't handle.
I don't want this to turn too much into a discussion of you, but this paragraph does set off warning bells in my mind that there might be something a wee bit self-justificatory about all this. Whenever I talk to transgendered people (about their transgenderism, that is), the insistence that they've always been this gender always seems to come just a bit too vehemently. I'm no psychologist, much less an expert on dysphorias, but as a philosopher I like to think I've been trained to spot dogmas when I see them. And the fact that this is dogma piques my philosophical and psychological curiosity. Delusion? Defense mechanism? Social indoctrination by the transgender community? The fact that such a community exists, and seems to have written everything there is on the Internet about their condition, is quite frustrating to a casual seeker of knowledge seeking the science of it. But now I'm just venting.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
And the relation isn't the same. Utilitarianism and deontology are not often interchangeable, and the distinction between them is not fuzzy and prone to causing confusion should that distinction ever come to be looked at in detail.
Really not my point. The point is that psychological-gender and biological-sex is only a sufficient distinction in cases where the classifications psychological and biological are not too broad to be informative and the line between them is obvious enough to be informative.
I think you're dodging my argument.
Wait . . . are you serious? The entire idea is new terminology. What exactly did you think I was talking about?
And, no, the previous terms couldn't handle it. They are far too blunt and inconsistently applied for it. Why resist refinement of this terminology? You don't even seem to considering if there is any utility gained by it.
EDIT: It's not even the same idea with different words, because I'm not trying to force this biology vs. psychology business. I'm not sure why you insist that the the imprecision of those categories is so irrelevant.
Why? Because it solves the label problem that exists with "sex changes"? Because it creates clearly compartmentalized factors to look at, instead of blindly applying a false dichotomy in what really is greedy reductionism?
You may have to go into more detail about that, but I'm fairly sure you missed something. Do you expect me to find your impression of "a bit too vehement," especially when you've already voiced unease or something with transness, to be particularly compelling?
My guess is that you interpret this as "I've always been transgender, it's not a choice, you can't control me," etc, etc. A rabid insistence against nurture-theorisms.
I think you're using sloppy psychology, and as you say you are no psychologist. For one, I subscribe to dual inheritence theory anyway. And If what you mean is that trans people who know claim to have always had trans feelings, I have trouble seeing how your suspicion is reasonable. And your jump to call it a dogma is likewise somewhat telling. I think you're erecting a stalwart system of pervasive memes where there is none.
In my case, I'm not speaking subjectively. I am speaking about these terms in an objective sense. I'm saying that whatever my (to use me as an example again, and only an example - I'm not inviting you to make comment on anything about me more than what I myself use in the example) sex/gender happens to be, while my subjective experience may be a key sign of what it is, if that experience is an indicator of a biologically embedded characteristic (as the research suggests), then there is no changing from one sex or gender to another. Changes in incidental phenotypy do not alter the non-incidental phenotypy that was apparently enough to motivate those changes.
And if it's not neurologically embedded, but the subjective experience has been persistent since an early age and has been enough to significantly shape childhood and adolescent experiences, then "always been this way" is still a pretty apt description.
You are, and it's not getting either you or me anywhere.
I'll be blunt. This is awful sociology on top of poor psychology. You do realize there is no actual "transgender community," don't you? We don't have meetings or newsletters, or any other form of organization.
This is really a pretty amazing reaction. You're frustrated because . . . transgender people are providing the majority of the insight into their transness. Huh. They're not even giving the majority of theories or discussion - I trust my experience more than your word on that. I guess I can see why you'd be looking out for bias, but consider. Trans people absolutely know the subjective experience of being trans many times better than cisgender people do. As I said, "this subjective experience has persisted as long as I've been able to note it" is a pretty normal, dependable assertion to be making. It's hardly the collusive vitriol that you seem to be visualizing. So you choose to call it dogma, because *gasp* all those who have this experience describe the experience in the same way?
It has become evident to me over the years that most cisgender people have trouble processing with the whole gender identity hullabaloo with trans people is even about. I have a lot of explanations as to why this may be, but put simply I think the confusion comes from not realizing that the "trans feelings" originate from what is primarily a physical, bodily experience. When someone says "I feel like a male/like I should be a male," this is an expression. There aren't currently linguistic tools fine enough to put it better. There isn't actually any comprehensive maleness/femaleness "sensation" that one can experience.
The experience is non-transferable. But I have seen intellectual comprehension on this issue flourish and flounder on the back of whether or not a party knows enough to realize that that's what it is they're talking about: a visceral, almost concrete experience. When someone start to go on about social indoctrination (from a wispy, abstract trans community, no less), or introjected images of female or male privileges as a coping mechanism for infant needs and whatnot, they start to lose me. It's the weakness of insight psychology to go off on a misleading trail of theory that ends up not being effectual.
This is why it's absolutely critical to understand that the line between what is physical and what is psychological is extremely fuzzy. You may provide an argument that the fuzziness doesn't matter most of the time and the terms are still perfectly functional as they are. If you do, you will be correct, and you will also be saying something irrelevant to this argument. I'm saying that in this particular instance (surely in others, but I'm not interested right now in making a list), the overlap is more significant than the distinction, or is at least as vital. In any case, it's a false dichotomy. The two sectors inform and affect each other.
You want to talk about science? It's a scientific position that causes me to feel very doubtful of any attempt to reduce the trans situation to "that gender identity is part of your psychology (something still infused with mysticism), but not your body. It's nothing to do with your body or your biological sex, which is much clearer." Scientifically, psychologically, this is messy and glib and weak. Biologically, it's at the least questionable.
If you want to be serious about this topic, then you need to be able to work with a better repertoire of nomenclature and analyses, rather than fall back on tools that are fine with other tasks but not delicate enough for this one.
Over time I've provided a good number of links to resources on the research and exploration of the trans phenomenon. I really don't want to hear about how it's so clouded because of validation-hungry transsexuals screaming their agendas in your face. It's all easily accessible. I can supply more resources, if you want. And you can google most of it with a bit of time. Though given what seems to be suspicion on your part, I wonder what you are willing to accept as "the science of it" as oppposed to something biased and dismissable.
The most supported theory is the one I subscribe to, and it's pretty plain and easy to understand. Because we're talking about behavior and brains and all that, there is of course much evidence but little proof. However, this isn't even a case where there's maybe, kinda, it could be something based by evidence. The evidence isn't hard to interpret, although I can see numerous reasons why any party might not like the interpretation.
And if it turns out to be incorrect, oh well. I don't feel the validity of myself really rides on whether or not it's "natural" or "biological."
Perhaps the suspicion you feel is irrational rather than rational, in response to a complex set of emotional and identity issues you're encountering from other people? That wouldn't be very strange.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
This is true enough.
This isn't.
Cases like... this one? Honestly, Nis was making a very simple and generalized assertion, and you jumped him for it.
In technical discussions, you have the luxury of defining your vocabulary and fine-tuning it to your purposes. But the language of casual conversation resists reform, and attempts to force it only cause confusion and incoherence. The gender/sex distinction works. People actually use it. It may not be perfect, but it's what we've got - and I submit that even the more fine-tuned language ought, for ease of comprehension, to start with it as a base. Don't reinvent the wheel here.
Nor am I; it's more like "anatomy vs. psychology".
Here's a Cliff's Notes version of the conversation as I read it:
Nis: Changing one's hair color does not change one's eye color.
Mamelon: Hair color is more than just the color of one's hair.
Blinking Spirit: Buh?
Mamelon: Well, there are many different hair colors besides "very dark" and "very light", and many different eye colors between "very dark" and "very light" too. Some people even have eyes or hair that is a mix of different colors! And there is also the matter of skin color. So really, "hair color" and "eye color" are vague and misleading terms.
Blinking Spirit: Uh... no they aren't.
All the complicated ways in which human sexuality can be expressed don't change the fundamental fact that people have (a) sex organs and (b) a mental gender identity. These two facets of a person's existence may not be the same values, or even be binary values at all, but barring serious injury or impairment, they're both there. And I hope you will agree that as categories, they're clear and distinct; the biological continuum between psychology and anatomy does not invalidate the categories of biology and anatomy.
It's regrettable for these purposes that when dealing solely with the cisgender norm, "sex" and "gender" can be used interchangeably. But that's the English language for you. Besides, Nis obviously knew what he was talking about, I know what he's talking about, and you know what he's talking about. Imprecision disappears when everybody knows they're being precise. When I'm in a philosophy seminar, the fact that "utilitarian" can mean "pragmatically functional" (and even within the field has a host of different variations!) does not especially impede our understanding of each other.
What label problem? In the course of an operation, a transgendered person changes sex but not gender.
No one said anything about dichotomies. Only distinctions.
You're right, I am uneasy in a number of ways about transness. But I don't think you can accuse me of being hesitant to accept trans people's subjective claims. It is the form of this particular claim, which I have observed on multiple occasions, that has attracted my attention. It's been an insistence, a protestation, that jumps out from the rest of what the person has to say in its force. This is, of course, an anecdotal observation; one might even call it "subjective" itself. But nevertheless, I find it interesting, and am frustrated that the "why" of it - if there is one - is so obscure. It's like becoming curious about why black people have light-colored palms and soles, and only being able to find information about the Civil Rights Movement. I hope this clarifies matters.
Now, let's just pretend the rest of our little misunderstanding never happened. Some of the things we said are unworthy of us.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
No, that's not true. For one, I didn't jump on him, I was just incredulous with the way he tried to reduce it. The whole point that I am making and have been making is against the assumption you're taking for granted here. It's being assumed that this is such a case where the overlap doesn't matter, and that's wrong. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. Please read the rest of my explanation to see what that means.
. . . Hm.
In conversation, we still talk about people as being male or female based on what seems to best match a person, even if the person isn't easily classified by the most common usages of those labels. I'll explain more below.
See below.
This is what you're missing. I never said "sex identity has nothing to do with physiology," or that anatomy and psychology aren't different, or anything like that. Here's the mock-up dialogue of how I saw it:
Nis: People have color types. Changing hair color doesn't change one's color type, because the eye color is still the same and can't be changed.
Mamelon: Well, yes, changing hair color doesn't change eye color. But one's color type isn't always determined by eye color.
Blinking Spirit: What? People still have eye color, Mamelon. Eye color isn't the same as hair color. Are you saying that color type is determined by hair color?
Mamelon: No, I'm saying that in some cases, you need to look at more than one coloration, whether eye or hair, to understand color type.
Blinking Spirit: People still have an eye color, and it's not the same as hair color.
Mamelon: Yes . . .
The eye and hair color analogy isn't complex enough to really fit the idea I'm talking about, which actually serves to illustrate pretty well what I'm getting at.
To use gender and sex, the assumption was that transgenderness is about mental gender, but that physical changes are mainly cosmetic and don't change the fundamental physical type, the physical sex. What I am pointing out is that it's not that simple. Whether sex is physical or gender is mental, it absolutely is not enough to recognize that with this particular issue.
That's because the state of being trans is not just about mental gender. It is also, to a specific degree, about physicality: and I don't mean that the feelings are concerning anatomical sex, or about a change in anatomy. What I'm saying is that, as far as we can tell based on the evidence, trans people aren't exactly male or female to begin with. They are reproductively male or female, that's true, but reproductive sex isn't equivocal to this larger idea of biological sex.
Nis said that changes in reproductive anatomy don't change the genetic sex - that is also true, but genetic sex is also not equivocal to biological sex. Not even all cisgender people have a genetic sex that matches their reproductive sex.
It's somewhat less apparent than with those who have visible anatomical intersex states. With trans people, it's most likely to do with neurological wiring, which is not easily measured but still very influential. I'm trying to avoid talking about "trimorphisms" or whatnot in order not to confuse it further, but it's difficult to step around. We don't have third, fourth, or fifth linguistic gender categories. We only have the two - male/masculine and female/feminine - so we have to work with what we have.
Because of that, the next best thing is to use a modular system that references the existing typology. Thus, I break down the different sets of traits so they can denote separate details. Since we don't have singular labels for the less common combinations of traits, the way to identify them is to describe the components of those combinations.
I'll use androgen insensitivity syndrome as an example again. A woman with complete (as opposed to partial) androgen insensitivity syndrome has XY chromosones and has testes, but not a full male reproductive system. Other than this, she looks and functions just like other women - it may be well into adulthood before she ever realizes that she is intersexual.
Some people may say that this person is male because she has XY chromosones and has testes (even though the testes function differently than most). Others call this person female, because her general phenotypy, the aspects of her phenotypy that are most relevant in day to day life, are that of a female. And in the medical community, this person would be regarded as an intersex female, not an intersex male. There are still those who insist that she's "technically" a male, which is not only a rigid and dogmatic application of the sex typology, but it's simply incorrect because "technically," she's intersex.
It's the same, in principle, with trans people. There is some trait that causes them to not match up to the patterns.
This is what I'm trying to tell you. I am not splitting hairs. I am saying that the original description of events is fundamentally, technically, terminologically incorrect. It probably doesn't look like it is to you or him, but that's because both you and he simply aren't informed about this. And don't take that as a insult.
Nis implicated that because a trans person's genetic sex didn't change, they aren't "really" the sex they identify with, even after treatments. My comment to him was, in short, that it doesn't really work that way. From a scientific point of view, there is no one single factor that decides what one's true sex is. The reason for this is because the very idea of sex identity is about a pattern of combined traits. Individual traits can be identified by which pattern they match up with - i.e. male reproductive system means the reproductive system that matches with the trait pattern that's called male. But having such a trait doesn't mean you have the rest of the pattern. Trans people are not "really" the sex that they were assigned at birth, either.
If sex means a set of traits instead of one trait, then trying to define an individual's sex using one trait is double-speak, intentional or otherwise.
In discussions of technical terms, android and gynoid are neat words that refer to reproductive type, endocrine functioning, and secondary characteristics. They're more specific than "biological sex," which also includes genetic sex and a few other things, but they're more concise and practical than having to note "reproductive system, plus hormone levels, plus appearance, etc." With the intersex woman above, she's mostly gynoid, with some android aspects. A trans person can be completely gynoid or completely android, and can have a genetic sex to match. But android and gynoid aren't the only aspects of phenotypy that are sex traits.
It may be that any gender identity is totally learned behavior - evidence strongly contradicts that it is, but it's theoretically possible. If this were true, and gender identity were incidental to biological sex traits, then I could see one arguing that trans people are completely male or female physically but with a different psychological gender identity - in such a case, the distinction really would be precise. That just isn't where the signs are pointing, though.
I'm also not saying that a transwoman is completely female or that a transman is completely male. Plenty of trans people don't like to be thought of as intersex or anything, because it may sound like they can't be a "normal" man or woman. But technically, it's easier to think of it that way. In everyday talk, though, one calls a transman male and a transwoman female for the reason we would call an intersex person male or female based on which was more relevant to them. Neither term fits exactly, but in daily life it doesn't have to. And in everyday situations, one's chromosones or the exact workings of one's reproductive system are a lot less relevant than the other factors which lead to social and personal identity.
I'll let you in on a little secret. I don't actually think of myself as "female in every way that matters" or "just like any other girl." I'm really not, and much of the time, I don't want to be. But I'm also not "basically male." Neither term is totally adequate, but I go with the one that is more generally descriptive. And in most situations, unless it's something about reproductive systems, that one is female. I don't even think there is something about my personality that "makes me a girl." But it is the one that my instincts point me towards. Going with that has worked for me.
It may seem strange to say this when it appears to be based on a scientific explanation that I wasn't aware of before the fact. Since it's not strictly about behavior, or feminine personalities or feminine interests, and since it's not about wanting to become someone else, that tells me that those instincts must mean something.
Well, in genital reassignment surgery, they change certain aspects of reproductive sex, yes. With hormones and other treatments, some of the sexual phenotypy changes. A transperson is not, however, someone who was unambiguously male who went to being unambiguously female, or who went from being unambiguously female to being unambiguously male. In either stage they're still an admixture, of sorts, even though the proportions change.
When talking about trans or intersex people, there is a language problem. Blinking Spirit, as you have little direct experience or background concerning it, this is something you wouldn't know. As someone who does, I'm just letting you know that language issues come up often.
Example. Let's say my mother is trying to explain my situation to a friend or relative. If she can't think of a better way of putting it than "a boy who wants to be a girl," then that gives the friend or relative the wrong idea. I'm not a boy who wants to be a girl, and such an expression can be misleading. At the least, it suggests ideas about me wanting something that girls have, or wanting to fulfill a female role, or thinking that it's better to be a girl, or something like that. And unfortunately, she doesn't know a better way to put it.
She could try saying "s/he's male, but thinks of herself as a female." That's not really accurate, either. How does one "think of oneself as a female" while being a male? Does that mean I identify with feminine behaviors? I don't, necessarily.
It's the same problem when someone describes their experience as feeling like "a man trapped in a woman's body" or "a woman trapped in a man's body." This expression can kind of give a cisgender person an idea of what it feels like. But many, many people find it confusing. Some critics even use this to assert that trans people are commandeering something. Like I said, there isn't really a "maleness" sensation or a "femaleness" sensation.
And any time when someone is not exactly male or female, not totally a man or a woman in the traditional sense, there is a language issue. As I mentioned before, there aren't third gender pronouns, or mixed sex words. We just have to use the language that's available to us, and adapt. That's why terms like transman, transwoman, genderqueer, etc, even exist.
EDIT:
It was enlightening when first a trans person said, "Wait a minute. I'm not a woman trapped in a man's body - this isn't a man's body. It's my body."
A mental/physical dichotomy is implicit when it's said that someone has sex A but gender B. In reality, it's closer to having sex AB, or C, or whatever.
In what way? It could be you have one of the same kinds of common misconceptions that I'm trying to make people aware of.
For instance, I get the impression that you think transness is like body dysmorphic disorder. There is a superficial similarity, but it's not a psychological similarity. Body dysmorphia is an anxiety disorder; it's a type of obsessive compulsion. Plastic surgery tends to not help and even aggravate the anxiety.
Trans feelings don't stem from anxieties, even though anxieties can arise from them. Unlike with body dysmorphia, physical alterations tend to improve a trans person's functioning and quality of life.
Maybe because we're constantly having to defend ourselves? Constantly being made to justify ourselves to others? Constantly having to deal with others poking around in our psychology, invading personal privacy, and levying all sorts of theories and accusations at us? Constantly hearing about how uncomfortable people are with us? You may not realize how far that goes. If my experience is an indication, then in general many of those who aren't transgender are more willing to plaster any explanation over us except the one that we give, even when it's grossly unreasonable.
Our subjective experience of our own bodies and selves is discounted. It absolutely is. I'm not trying to be unduly abrasive here, but it feels like you're looking for a reason to see this a conspiracy or something without considering why one might feel they have to defend that. Why that in particular is something that's questioned and needled at. And really, I haven't felt that the always-been-this-way thing really is that much of a stressed matter, at least no more than with any GLBTI people.
I'm still puzzled as to how it can be called a dogma. That's quite a leap. If it's something that almost all trans people seem to think they have to justify and defend, that's not surprising to me. In the post of mine about which you mentioned this, I wasn't actually defending it (I was talking about something else entirely, which I think I've clarified), but nonetheless, I'm tired of having to defend it. I'm frustrated with having to explain myself all the time. I'm curious as to why it's such an issue.
I do understand what you mean, but surely you can see why they'd be entangled in both cases, right? With trans folks, there's still a lot of contention about terminology, what's important to know, and the value of the data and the theories drawn from them.
But if you want objective data and not personal accounts, there should be plenty of places on the web alone to find them. It'd take some poking, and perhaps you just haven't known where to look.
This has been a very long post to write, and I hope that I don't have to do it again. I'd appreciate it if you'd try to understand that I'm not talking down to you, I'm not trying to confuse you, but I'm trying to explain something that you admittedly don't know about. It's a tough balance, trying to tell what somebody already knows and what needs to be broken down. If you don't understand something, or don't see where I got something, then tell me you don't know what I mean. It makes it easier for me to strike that balance. I want to make it simpler to understand.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
...it doesn't matter. "Why are you doing X? Why are you responding to that stimulus in that way, when I personally would've done Y?" Sure, I have every right to ask such questions. But unless I am prepared to make the case that X is immoral or unethical, I have no reason not to take the answer given at face value. If I cannot understand that answer, it is rather presumptuous of me to assume that there must be an answer deeper or other: that my confusion is to be blamed on the inability of another to articulate the truth about him/herself, rather than on the limitations of my own imperfect empathy.
It's hard indeed to be comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity; but true peace of mind eludes us until we are.