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On July 06 2023 11:40 iFU.spx wrote:
So you basically allow self identification for gender and accepting and follow new identity made by another person? This sounds crazy. Whats the point?
The point is that gender is more complex and nuanced than merely whatever biological sex dictates, and many people experience pain and suffering (gender dysphoria) when being told by society that their gender needs to match their sex or else they're a bad person or inferior or wrong.
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On July 06 2023 11:40 iFU.spx wrote:
So you basically allow self identification for gender and accepting and follow new identity made by another person? This sounds crazy. Whats the point?
Not everyone feels like the label of "man" or "woman" is appropriate for them. It's possible to feel like you were born in the wrong body - which is called gender dysmorphia, where no matter what you do your day to day life feels wrong in a way you can't make up for in other areas. It's possible you fall anywhere on a spectrum that isn't sufficiently defined by two distinct gender identities that were picked for you before you ever had a say.
Imagine you went to play a Diablo, or a Dark Souls, or Street Fighter, or a card game like Magic the Gathering, and being told you only have two choices for how to play the entire game. You have no room to express yourself, or to say that isn't the way you want to play the game. That game would suck.
If you enjoy the typical label of man or woman, you're still in they majority, and that's fine. But there exist people where it genuinely makes you sick or depressed to have to fit into a box that was made for you without your say on the matter. It doesn't cost us anything except maybe a few seconds to identify someone in a way that validates them and makes them feel respected.
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I don’t really get the conversation dynamics that fixate everybody on trans issues. Like, I thought xDaunt used to be kind of masterful at saying something exactly provocative enough to earn hundreds of angry liberal responses (of which he would choose the dumbest one to reply to, spout some new inflammatory bullshit, rinse and repeat). I didn’t like or even respect it, per se, but I could recognize there was a craft to it.
But in the last week or so there’s the same effect but without any of the cleverness. Page after page of bathroom shit, followed by the most obvious troll shitpost I’ve seen in ages (“you don’t actually think trans women were women, because you wouldn’t sleep with one, lol”) getting a pretty similar level of response.
I’m not criticizing, mind you, I just don’t understand why it works. It’s not just that it’s inflammatory – GH said something like “the US basically picked up where the Nazis left off” not long ago to basically no responses! There’s this bizarre fixation on anything to do with trans people existing in society that nobody can seem to shake.
The central question to the whole debate, as far as I can tell, is “does the existence of trans people threaten society somehow.” And the “yes” side of that debate can’t come up with anything stronger than “they might provide an excuse for predators to go in the women’s room” and “their existence might confuse your kids.” That’s… pretty thin. We already pretty much universally agree we should tolerate various religions and ideologies with *way* more credible arguments that they’re a threat to society (I think Scientologists have had clandestine plots to infiltrate the government before?), so if that’s all they’ve got it’s a pretty open and shut case for “nope, not a threat to society, we should just coexist with them like everybody else.” I’m not even sure who in the thread disagrees with that? Not BJ, not any of the liberals. Not even sure if Introvert would? Is it just the obvious trolls from the last few pages we’re arguing against?
I mean, it feels a bit like the “Ground Zero Mosque” or the “Migrant Caravan” – basically made up stories that Republicans yell about in an election year to try to bump the national conversation off course for a bit. Except it’s not an election year, and the national conversation has been stuck on this for kind of a long time now. Why?
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On July 06 2023 11:40 iFU.spx wrote:
So you basically allow self identification for gender and accepting and follow new identity made by another person? This sounds crazy. Whats the point?
A friend of mine was born as a male and said something along the lines of:
"I am not trans. So I don't identify as a woman or anything, but I'm also not a man either. I dunno, I am just focusing on being cute and calling it good there. I wouldn't say I'm particularly motivated to label myself as some kinda specific gender".
It was an interesting experience for me, because I am not particularly involved with the new wave of gender identity stuff. I understood trans stuff and dysphoria and whatnot, but it was the first time I had heard of someone just kinda not giving a shit about the distinction as a whole.
As a person, they are definitely very feminine in many ways. But also definitely not a woman. Its very interesting. Its like they have transcended the question as a whole and they live a happy, stable, good life.
Your question of "what's the point" made me think of this, because the experience was really confusing to me to hear my friend describe the quote I typed above. It made me realize gender identity is so unimportant that someone can just choose to not even participate and it changes nothing. So it made me wonder "what's the point?" of gender identity. Why bother being a dude? why bother being a woman?
The answer is: Because identity is important to a person internally. It is important for someone to be who they feel like they are. If someone thinks they are a woman, whatever, apparently makes zero difference. same with being a man. same with just kinda not being either one I guess?
I also have a friend who considers themselves just kinda not sexual or attracted to either men or women and has zero intention of ever being in a romantic relationship. Not just not having kids. Not just not getting married. They just don't really have an inclination towards romance as a whole.
So when you put these 2 things together, you are able to reach an interesting conclusion: gender identity is not necessary for romance/sexuality. and also, romance/sexuality is not necessary for an individual either. Some people just kinda bypass the whole thing. And so what is the impact from each of these people? Basically zero. It doesn't change anything for anyone. So maybe the entire issue just isn't even real. Maybe we are so used to "boy or girl?" that we aren't realizing the question itself can be ignored.
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On July 06 2023 11:40 iFU.spx wrote:
So you basically allow self identification for gender and accepting and follow new identity made by another person? This sounds crazy. Whats the point?
Dude. Did you miss the last few decades of this discussion?
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On July 06 2023 13:01 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t really get the conversation dynamics that fixate everybody on trans issues. Like, I thought xDaunt used to be kind of masterful at saying something exactly provocative enough to earn hundreds of angry liberal responses (of which he would choose the dumbest one to reply to, spout some new inflammatory bullshit, rinse and repeat). I didn’t like or even respect it, per se, but I could recognize there was a craft to it.
But in the last week or so there’s the same effect but without any of the cleverness. Page after page of bathroom shit, followed by the most obvious troll shitpost I’ve seen in ages (“you don’t actually think trans women were women, because you wouldn’t sleep with one, lol”) getting a pretty similar level of response.
I’m not criticizing, mind you, I just don’t understand why it works. It’s not just that it’s inflammatory – GH said something like “the US basically picked up where the Nazis left off” not long ago to basically no responses! There’s this bizarre fixation on anything to do with trans people existing in society that nobody can seem to shake.
The central question to the whole debate, as far as I can tell, is “does the existence of trans people threaten society somehow.” And the “yes” side of that debate can’t come up with anything stronger than “they might provide an excuse for predators to go in the women’s room” and “their existence might confuse your kids.” That’s… pretty thin. We already pretty much universally agree we should tolerate various religions and ideologies with *way* more credible arguments that they’re a threat to society (I think Scientologists have had clandestine plots to infiltrate the government before?), so if that’s all they’ve got it’s a pretty open and shut case for “nope, not a threat to society, we should just coexist with them like everybody else.” I’m not even sure who in the thread disagrees with that? Not BJ, not any of the liberals. Not even sure if Introvert would? Is it just the obvious trolls from the last few pages we’re arguing against?
I mean, it feels a bit like the “Ground Zero Mosque” or the “Migrant Caravan” – basically made up stories that Republicans yell about in an election year to try to bump the national conversation off course for a bit. Except it’s not an election year, and the national conversation has been stuck on this for kind of a long time now. Why?
The fixation is not just on trans people but also on the broader ideas of gender ideology. Personally I think it’s really fascinating. It’s kind of like COVID in that it’s a new thing that’s happening on a grand scale that everyone is trying to figure out. It also has massive generational divides. The idea that everyone can pick whatever pronouns to call themselves that everyone else has to abide by that lest they be an asshole is really interesting. Ideas that you can be gender fluid and be a man one day and a woman the next or even back and forth on the same day. Very interesting. I’ve seen some people with pronouns like she/them. What’s that mean, they can be a woman at the start of the sentence but non-binary by the end of it? Or their gender depends on how the sentence is structured? I don’t really know. At some point it just feels like a bunch of bullshit everyone is making up as they go along and the final and most fascinating part is that it seems like it’s the teenagers that are evolving these ideas and all the adults in the room are just going along with whatever they decide.
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On July 06 2023 14:56 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2023 13:01 ChristianS wrote:
I don’t really get the conversation dynamics that fixate everybody on trans issues. Like, I thought xDaunt used to be kind of masterful at saying something exactly provocative enough to earn hundreds of angry liberal responses (of which he would choose the dumbest one to reply to, spout some new inflammatory bullshit, rinse and repeat). I didn’t like or even respect it, per se, but I could recognize there was a craft to it.
But in the last week or so there’s the same effect but without any of the cleverness. Page after page of bathroom shit, followed by the most obvious troll shitpost I’ve seen in ages (“you don’t actually think trans women were women, because you wouldn’t sleep with one, lol”) getting a pretty similar level of response.
I’m not criticizing, mind you, I just don’t understand why it works. It’s not just that it’s inflammatory – GH said something like “the US basically picked up where the Nazis left off” not long ago to basically no responses! There’s this bizarre fixation on anything to do with trans people existing in society that nobody can seem to shake.
The central question to the whole debate, as far as I can tell, is “does the existence of trans people threaten society somehow.” And the “yes” side of that debate can’t come up with anything stronger than “they might provide an excuse for predators to go in the women’s room” and “their existence might confuse your kids.” That’s… pretty thin. We already pretty much universally agree we should tolerate various religions and ideologies with *way* more credible arguments that they’re a threat to society (I think Scientologists have had clandestine plots to infiltrate the government before?), so if that’s all they’ve got it’s a pretty open and shut case for “nope, not a threat to society, we should just coexist with them like everybody else.” I’m not even sure who in the thread disagrees with that? Not BJ, not any of the liberals. Not even sure if Introvert would? Is it just the obvious trolls from the last few pages we’re arguing against?
I mean, it feels a bit like the “Ground Zero Mosque” or the “Migrant Caravan” – basically made up stories that Republicans yell about in an election year to try to bump the national conversation off course for a bit. Except it’s not an election year, and the national conversation has been stuck on this for kind of a long time now. Why? The fixation is not just on trans people but also on the broader ideas of gender ideology. Personally I think it’s really fascinating. It’s kind of like COVID in that it’s a new thing that’s happening on a grand scale that everyone is trying to figure out. It also has massive generational divides. The idea that everyone can pick whatever pronouns to call themselves that everyone else has to abide by that lest they be an asshole is really interesting. Ideas that you can be gender fluid and be a man one day and a woman the next or even back and forth on the same day. Very interesting. I’ve seen some people with pronouns like she/them. What’s that mean, they can be a woman at the start of the sentence but non-binary by the end of it? Or their gender depends on how the sentence is structured? I don’t really know. At some point it just feels like a bunch of bullshit everyone is making up as they go along and the final and most fascinating part is that it seems like it’s the teenagers that are evolving these ideas and all the adults in the room are just going along with whatever they decide.
I agreed with the beginning of your post - that it's new-ish and fascinating and people are trying to figure out how to navigate gender - but then I feel like your post became more condescending and dismissive ("feels like bullshit", etc.) instead of simply curious about how people may be different.
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Well then I guess let me be the first to inform you that gender studies is an academic field and this isn't just kids making it up as they go and adults going along with it. The online right ridiculed gender studies for years in the 2010's so I'm not surprised you're unfamiliar with the field and what it covers (not meant as a jab. Genuinely doubt any given political circle would talk about a field it doesn't value in some way). Pronouns like she/them are pretty simple. They don't inform you of what gender a person is but rather what pronouns a person is happy to be referred to as. For example, I am a cis man and I'm happy to be referred to as he or him in conversation but I wouldn't have any problems with being referred to as they or them in conversation either. Therefore, my pronouns are he/them.
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I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that it's new, honestly. One of my favourite comedians (Eddie Izzard) was genderfluid longggg before I even knew what genderfluid was. I always thought it was just weirdness connected to Rocky Horror Picture Show and kinda the same stuff Eddie Murphy was doing in terms of self-presentation at the time, but later I had something of an awakening looking back and being like "Yeah no he was never really just a man in the typical sense of it."
It helped me contextualize some of the stuff we arguably hear too much about today and be more willing to see trans people as people in my adulthood.
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On July 06 2023 15:26 Fleetfeet wrote:
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that it's new, honestly. One of my favourite comedians (Eddie Izzard) was genderfluid longggg before I even knew what genderfluid was. I always thought it was just weirdness connected to Rocky Horror Picture Show and kinda the same stuff Eddie Murphy was doing in terms of self-presentation at the time, but later I had something of an awakening looking back and being like "Yeah no he was never really just a man in the typical sense of it."
It helped me contextualize some of the stuff we arguably hear too much about today and be more willing to see trans people as people in my adulthood.
Yeah just because we have a name for something now doesn't mean it didn't exist before.
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On July 06 2023 13:13 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2023 11:40 iFU.spx wrote:
So you basically allow self identification for gender and accepting and follow new identity made by another person? This sounds crazy. Whats the point? A friend of mine was born as a male and said something along the lines of: "I am not trans. So I don't identify as a woman or anything, but I'm also not a man either. I dunno, I am just focusing on being cute and calling it good there. I wouldn't say I'm particularly motivated to label myself as some kinda specific gender". It was an interesting experience for me, because I am not particularly involved with the new wave of gender identity stuff. I understood trans stuff and dysphoria and whatnot, but it was the first time I had heard of someone just kinda not giving a shit about the distinction as a whole. As a person, they are definitely very feminine in many ways. But also definitely not a woman. Its very interesting. Its like they have transcended the question as a whole and they live a happy, stable, good life. Your question of "what's the point" made me think of this, because the experience was really confusing to me to hear my friend describe the quote I typed above. It made me realize gender identity is so unimportant that someone can just choose to not even participate and it changes nothing. So it made me wonder "what's the point?" of gender identity. Why bother being a dude? why bother being a woman? The answer is: Because identity is important to a person internally. It is important for someone to be who they feel like they are. If someone thinks they are a woman, whatever, apparently makes zero difference. same with being a man. same with just kinda not being either one I guess? I also have a friend who considers themselves just kinda not sexual or attracted to either men or women and has zero intention of ever being in a romantic relationship. Not just not having kids. Not just not getting married. They just don't really have an inclination towards romance as a whole. So when you put these 2 things together, you are able to reach an interesting conclusion: gender identity is not necessary for romance/sexuality. and also, romance/sexuality is not necessary for an individual either. Some people just kinda bypass the whole thing. And so what is the impact from each of these people? Basically zero. It doesn't change anything for anyone. So maybe the entire issue just isn't even real. Maybe we are so used to "boy or girl?" that we aren't realizing the question itself can be ignored.
For sexuality, you are right, you can just leave them alone. I think teaching kids that being a-sexual is completely normal is a good idea, though.
For genders, it is more complicated, as we are often forces to pick male or female, and for very good reasons: Sports is one glaring issue, but also changing rooms, prisons, healthcare etc. This needs to be discussed properly. What you "identify as" should not be the only factor.
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It didn’t exist in the mainstream where now we sign our work emails with our pronouns and they ask us our pronouns at doctors appointments
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I just use they/them every time I don't personally know someone.
This way you can't miss, I guess, and I don't want to think about pronounces at all - so I use the easiest fits-all solution.
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On July 06 2023 16:39 ZeroByte13 wrote:
I just use they/them every time I don't personally know someone.
This way you can't miss, I guess, and I don't want to think about pronounces at all - so I use the easiest fits-all solution.
Me too. Or I'll just use their actual names; a lot of people who hate on preferred pronouns don't seem to realize that you literally don't need to use any pronouns if you just use the real nouns/names.
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Norway28553 Posts
I think 'bullshit' is a bit.. loaded, but there's an element to the pronouns debacle where I can see where one would land there. Not in terms of using she/them, but rather in terms of 'neopronouns', like xe and zir and eir.
Again this isn't a real problem or anything, I'm guessing it's like a triple digit number of people who insist on those, but as a person with some interest in linguistics, who most certainly accepts and argues for the concept of languages as subject to evolution, there's something funny about the concept of just inventing a new set of pronouns. It's almost like if someone insisted on new set of articles, like now instead of the I'm gonna use pha and instead of a and an, I'm going with gi and ig. Like it doesn't bother me but if someone prefaced an email with my articles are pha, gi and ig and they then proceeded writing pha meeting is on Monday, we'll discuss the need for gi new coffee machine and pha upcoming Christmas party I'd think that's a bit weird.
And yeah I'm just being facetious, I can understand how there was a vacuum in terms of gender neutral pronouns which people tried to fill. But I also understand that if some 50 year old dude is browsing Facebook and he sees some post from TheAntiPCMemeFactory screenshotting an email ending with my pronouns are xe/xem they go what the fuck lol without necessarily them being a bigot.
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On July 06 2023 16:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Me too. Or I'll just use their actual names; a lot of people who hate on preferred pronouns don't seem to realize that you literally don't need to use any pronouns if you just use the real nouns/names. In some cases, yes.
But very often this is not possible as many sentences require referencing a person several times.
I mean it is possible but it sounds unnatural and weird.
Joe told me he thinks it might be difficult for him to manage the issue just by himself.
Joe told me Joe thinks it might be difficult for Joe to manage the issue just ... alone?
So you will almost definitely end up having to use pronounces, one way or another.
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On July 06 2023 16:53 ZeroByte13 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2023 16:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Me too. Or I'll just use their actual names; a lot of people who hate on preferred pronouns don't seem to realize that you literally don't need to use any pronouns if you just use the real nouns/names. In some cases, yes. But very often this is not possible as many sentences require referencing a person several times. I mean it is possible but it sounds unnatural and weird. Joe told me he thinks it might be difficult for him to manage the issue just by himself. Joe told me Joe thinks it might be difficult for Joe to manage the issue just ... alone? So you will almost definitely end up having to use pronounces, one way or another.
Joe thinks it's difficult to manage alone? Wouldn't that suffice in getting the point across, based on context? But I see your point 
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On July 06 2023 16:29 BlackJack wrote:
It didn’t exist in the mainstream where now we sign our work emails with our pronouns and they ask us our pronouns at doctors appointments
If by "it" you mean a modicum of decency and consideration for trans people in "mainstream" US society.
In the US, variations of "this new problem..." usually translates to something like "this group whose rights we trample got people to listen to them and see their point about deserving to be treated like human beings and that's disruptive to the society we built on their oppression"
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On July 06 2023 16:59 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Joe thinks it's difficult to manage alone? Wouldn't that suffice in getting the point across, based on context? But I see your point Not every sentence can be condensed like this, especially if there's no context.
E.g. part of my work (sometimes) is to both answer the support tickets and sometimes create them.
Whoever creates the ticket needs to describe the entire context, and it's almost always about a specific user having a problem. So very often they/he/she are used at least a few times, and using just names would be very unwieldy.
I'm pretty sure most people would have hard time not using pronounces actively, let alone not using them at all.
But it's not a problem if you use "them" all the time. Especially in my case when users are from different cultures so it's not always obvious to me at all if this is a male or female name. So why bother anyway if "they" always works.
It helps that English is mostly not gendered unlike my first language - it would sound super weird if I'd use "they" in that language, but English makes it easier.
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On July 06 2023 17:09 ZeroByte13 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2023 16:59 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Joe thinks it's difficult to manage alone? Wouldn't that suffice in getting the point across, based on context? But I see your point Not every sentence can be condensed like this, especially if there's no context. E.g. part of my work (sometimes) is to both answer the support tickets and sometimes create them. Whoever creates the ticket needs to describe the entire context, and it's almost always about a specific user having a problem. So very often they/he/she are used at least a few times, and using just names would be very unwieldy. I'm pretty sure most people would have hard time not using pronounces actively, let alone not using them at all. But it's not a problem if you use "them" all the time. Especially in my case when users are from different cultures so it's not always obvious to me at all if this is a male or female name. So why bother anyway if "they" always works.
I think the anti- personal pronoun people (I'll just say anti-trans people) would navigate not using pronouns just for the people whose pronouns they disagree with, which is probably only a few percent of people. I don't mean that they never ever use pronouns for anything ever again. In other words, anti-trans people would still use traditional pronouns for all cis people (anti-trans people would have no problem using he/him for me, because I'm a cis-guy and that matches their expectation), but anti-trans people might just want to use a trans person's real name instead of the preferred pronouns for that specific individual. It's a very rare accommodation that anti-trans people would make, and it's an additional option if they really, really don't want to use a trans person's preferred pronouns. Or they could just be inconsiderate and use the wrong pronouns, not that I think that's a better option.
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