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[TD1]

Let's put this all behind us with a joint determination. To be more moderate in thinking, and more prone to listening over killing. Also, on my part, I think I could have used less sarcasm. I'm feeling inclined towards it today.

[Neonivek]

It is unlikely, hence why I think discussions like this need a ban list, mostly because people are passionate about their opinions and take it as personal offense to have someone say one that is contrary to their own.

It is why you can't tell people "listen over killing" because when a contrary opinion is taken as a threat... It falls apart.

It is more important that people stop quoting and mostly just ignore people trying to elevate the heat of the topic.

So I think people should do less listening and less killing at the same time. This isn't supposed to be a discussion, so you shouldn't care what people put down.

[TD1]

Heh, point taken.

[4maskwolf]

Vector: about the whole cis trans thing: I think there is a difference between your physical gender and your emotional self.  If you have male parts, you are physically a male, but all that says about you is what sex organs you possess.  What you choose to identify as is an entirely different matter and is up to each individual, and your physical gender may or may not have anything to do with it.  That's my personal opinion, obviously, but I think we need to draw a distinction between what you have and what you are, because those are entirely different things.  One depends solely on genetics, the other is more difficult to pin down.

[Loud Whispers]

Postin' to watch thread

[XXXXYYYY]

Postin' to watch thread

[Glowcat]

If you're reducing "physical gender"/sex down to genitalia or chromosomes you're engaging in some pretty crass reductionist reasoning that only serves to delegitimize trans peoples' genders while simultaneously ignoring intersex people to make your argument. I'm not even sure what people mean by "emotional self" or "identify as" since these often do not describe the experiences of trans people, who can end up conflicted for most of their lives trying to sort out their dysphoria against everything society is telling them. Certainly there is room from a perspective of transhumanism to transition due to less internalized reasons, but overwhelmingly what trans people communicate something that goes beyond a conscious decision - their gender (or at least the parts of it demanding transition socially/physically) is something that is internal and natural to them (and by extension their bodies)

Furthermore taking the discussion along lines of "biological gender" is a farce. Trans sexual people are least aren't merely taking onto themselves a set of alternative gender roles. To remove that dysphoria they fix their bodies with HRT and surgical measures to overcome the (unwilling) direction their starting hormones took them. "Biologically" a trans person's body isn't merely what it was assigned at birth, and I think a lot of posters here cannot get past that association of birth-gender somehow being more natural or vital to one's definition than the changes possible. I suspect even if transhumanism is pushed towards new heights of potential that people will still pretend there was something sacred about the gender forcefully assigned to one at birth, no matter how complete the physiological transformation, because at its heart the opposition to recognizing trans peoples' identities in a non-patronizing manner is about normative boundaries being superseded rather than petty claims of overly simplistic scientific truth.

[4maskwolf]

I wasn't making myself particularly clear, Glowcat.  What I meant by "emotional self" is EXACTLY what you're saying (although significantly less verbose and in-depth because I'm not transgender, haven't done a huge amount of research on the matter, and thus don't have a full picture of what it would be like).  I'm trying to split physical gender from your emotional/subconscious identity even though it isn't relevant to this discussion because that's how I think of it: sometimes, although rarely, physical gender becomes important, mostly because of medical conditions and whatnot (for instance, someone whose physical gender is exclusively female wouldn't get penile cancer, and similarly someone whose physical gender is exclusively male wouldn't get ovarian cancer).

Also, this conversation isn't just about transgender and things, it's also about gender roles and other gender-related topics.

[Neonivek]

biological gender would certainly be able to be altered when science develops some form of gene alteration or when it is finally able to transplant sexual organs from one gender to another.

It is a shame that it means that until our technology reaches that point, that one cannot change biological gender. Yet unfortunately people's feelings cannot change the cold reality of life.

It is more important not to uphold someone to biological sex, except when it comes to sexual preferences. then to just consider biological sex to be mutable by cosmetics and hormone therapy.

Or better yet to simply not use biological sex at all in these kinds of discussions.

Though if one is going to go the route that saying that sex change operations really and truly alter your sex, with current technology. Then you are also, at the same time, deciding that only certain people have the privilege of changing their gender, namely people with the money to do so. Thus it becomes a class issue.

---

Ok rhetoric aside.

It is TERRIBLE, monstrous, that men and women cannot fix their biological gender. But it honestly isn't a political issue to me, it is just "This is what a sex change operation actually does". It is expecting a change from an operation that just doesn't happen.

Sex Change operations help and are needed... But they aren't at the level where I'd say they have complete biological gender altering ability.

Well, I assume... it has been a while since I've seen what they do. I mean they don't have to give you a working womb or productive testicles.

[Glowcat]

Overall the thrust of my argument was these attempt to separate is in itself flawed since it fails to account for the full nuance of reality, and that trying to do even that is only a method of invalidation since it necessitates a "real female" or "real male" by the body parts you're targeting as symbolic of the sex ideal. *Channels Judith Butler* What is often erased from these attempts is recognition that our conceptions of sex are, like gender, largely constructed without recognition that they are not in fact universalizing. People (trans or intersex) are constantly being forced into narrow categories which are then doggedly protected by the ideological belief structure which permeates societies as reality. No matter how many exclusions it has to make for people who do not conform to these criteria that formed the heterosexist/reproduction-oriented societies leading up to the now. This ancient system needs to be dismantled. People are no longer merely defined by their roles in a system of breeding, where infertility is a grave sin or curse. Neither should we continue to hold onto outdated restrictions in the way we can understand the world based on these systems, not without recognizing that the lack of nuance in these matters is hurting people in the now.

[Neonivek]

Can one truly get rid of "Biological Gender" when it is an important system for sexual preference?

While certainly there are people who do not care about it and as long as someone currently resembles a gender they will go for it.

Others only care about biological gender, and that for them a simple operation to make someone "Look like" another gender just doesn't work for them.

By removing that as a concept you are forcing them to constrain to a viewpoint because it is more convenient for people who are mostly subjugated. Yet perhaps that isn't the source of their subjugation but rather this over importance towards biological sex.

Or are we just going to create another word to replace "biological sex" that means the exact same thing... over and over again in order to be politically correct because we have to avoid this uncomfortable idea that people actually will always care that the person they are having sex in might actually be a "biological gender" that they do not want to have sex with.

No one is applying Biological sex to the ability to reproduce, that would be silly. Plenty of people were born genetically incapable of reproduction.

---

I'll stop posting for a bit, I am raising heat too much.

[LordBucket]

Allegory time!

Guy person walks into a bar. Bartender offers him that person a drink.

B: "Hi, what can I get you?"

P: "Nothing, you jerkwad! Do you realize there's no parking spaces available for me?!?!?"

Bartender glances out the window. There are 5 parking spaces in clear view.

B: "I see five spots from where I'm standing."

P: "Oh, right...rub it in you miserable waste of flesh. I hope you die in a fire. slowly. ALL FIVE OF THOSE PARKING SPACES ARE FOR CARS!!!"

B: "Umm, yes? Why is that a problem?"

P: "OMG, are you SERIOUS?!?!!? No, I shouldn't even be surprised. This is the establishment at work, trying to keep me down!"

B: "I'm sorry, are you disabled? We do have a reserved parking space for that. I'm sorry if it was taken."

P: "'Disabled?' How DARE you!!! Just because I drive something different, you think I'm somehow BROKEN?"

B: "Look, I'm sorry...I honestly don't understand what the problem is. We have parking spaces. Why are you yelling at me?"

P: "Because all your parking spaces are for cars!"

B: "We also have a bike rack."

P: "Oh, sure...you accommodate people driving cars and people driving bicycles, but inconsiderate asshole that you are, I don't see any SEGUEWAY parking spots."

B: "Segueway?"

P: "YES! Don't pretend you don't know what they are. And you don't have one single spot to accommodate me and mine! I should sue you!"

B: "Of course I know what a segueway is. I've just never seen one. Why would you expect me to make parking available for them?"

P: "BECAUSE WE'RE HUMAN BEINGS TOO! We DEMAND equal time!

Guy person leaves the bar in an angry fit and goes home to post angry messages online. Bartender is left confused. The end.

[Bauglir]

Yeah, that's a pretty dishonest presentation of the situation. It's almost as though you think people are complaining about not getting special privileges.

[Urist Arrhenius]

Can we agree on simple definitions?
Gender: the state of being a man or woman with respect to social differences rather biological ones.
Sex: the state of being male or female with respect to biological differences.

This way when we talk about sex change operations they are a means of changing sex, not gender.

[4maskwolf]

Yeah, that's a pretty dishonest presentation of the situation. It's almost as though you think people are complaining about not getting special privileges.

This.