Conceptual Distinctions: From chromosomal definitions to gender

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  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    edited June 2023
    fineline wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I think gender expression is yet another thing.

    I agree, and it seems to be something talked about in trans spaces too.

    Not sure about Pomona's distinction between gender and gender identity, as in my experience trans/non-binary people generally use 'gender' to mean the gender they identify with, rather than the gender assigned by society, and they wouldn't be happy for their assigned sex at birth to be called their gender. But I see the point that the assigned sex at birth may not match one's chromosomes. I had assumed this was why the terms AFAB and AMAB had replaced speaking in terms of 'biological sex,' and why I quite like those terms for accuracy. My chromosomes have never been checked, but my birth certificate says female, which was based, I assume, on people looking at my naked body and seeing that I didn't have a penis. Therefore, for medical purposes, I am AFAB.

    But the point I'm making is that we're not assigned a sex at birth, but assigned a gender. Your birth certificate says female because the midwife made a guess based on your body's appearance, but many AFAB people have turned out to be intersex later in life - this is why sports bodies don't do chromosone testing, because a lot of women athletes turn out to be intersex. You (general you) can be cis and intersex precisely because AGAB is *not* the same as sex - an intersex woman who is also AFAB is a cis intersex woman, with her sex being intersex and her gender and gender identity both being female.

    AFAB and AMAB are used because eg cis women and trans men may both have periods. They're not terms used to describe intersex experiences, which are generally described as CAFAB/CAMAB or coercively assigned female/male at birth. This is because generally intersex children are not legally able to be recorded as intersex on their birth certificates - they are assigned a gender precisely because their sex cannot legally be recorded.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Pomona wrote: »
    But the point I'm making is that we're not assigned a sex at birth, but assigned a gender. Your birth certificate says female because the midwife made a guess based on your body's appearance, but many AFAB people have turned out to be intersex later in life - this is why sports bodies don't do chromosone testing, because a lot of women athletes turn out to be intersex. You (general you) can be cis and intersex precisely because AGAB is *not* the same as sex - an intersex woman who is also AFAB is a cis intersex woman, with her sex being intersex and her gender and gender identity both being female.

    To my understanding, the assignment of the labels 'male' and 'female' by a medical person, based on perception of genitals, is assignment of sex. My understanding is that the current usage of the terms sex and gender is that sex is about body, and gender is about internal experience. I know (as I said) that the assignment can be incorrect, and that is why the word 'assigned' is used (much like the word 'alleged' or 'claimed' in other contexts).

    I am not saying AFAB is the same as sex. Rather, it is indicating that this is what your sex was assumed to be (and yes, different terms for babies who are seen to be intersex and a deliberate choice is made), in a medical environment where it's literally all about your genitals. So it would make more sense to talk about sex and assigned sex.

    Or does gender now have this meaning in the trans communities you are in, in your country? Does it now mean the label on your birth certificate? I have not seen it used this way in any online communities, nor in person - and we had LGBTQIA+ training recently at work, which has links with the current organisations representing LGBTQIA+ people, and we were given quite a thorough run-through of terminology. So if this is a new meaning being used in some places, I'd be curious to see some links.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    Sex as it actually exists on a chromosonal level and sex as it is perceived based on eg genitalia are different things. The latter is, I would argue, part of assigned gender as imposed by society. Ie, that people with a particular type of body act and think etc in this particular kind of way. Sex on a chromosonal level exists on a much more complex level than most current societies are prepared to deal with, so the simpler version of assigned gender is chosen instead.

    @fineline I don't think it's accurate to sharply divide between gender = internal experience and sex = bodily experiences, because bodies are intensely gendered by ours and this can be very clearly seen by using eg race as a lens here. Like, the way in which Black women are for eg seen as hypersexual and more masculine and as experiencing less physical pain than white women is an example of how different women are gendered differently based on their bodies. When white doctors are taught in med school that Black women have fewer pain receptors than white women, body vs internal experience is no longer a helpful metric by which to discuss sex and gender.

    Also FWIW I'm in the UK, and different LGBTQ+ people have different preferences regarding terminology. There isn't an official list somewhere!
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    Also missed edit window - "because bodies are intensely gendered by ours" was meant to read "because bodies are intensely gendered by our physical experiences as well as internal dialogue".
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Pomona wrote: »
    Also FWIW I'm in the UK, and different LGBTQ+ people have different preferences regarding terminology. There isn't an official list somewhere!

    True, but there are lists made that are widely agreed upon, as well as discussions about terminology. For communication to work effectively, a significant number of people need to have a shared understanding of the meanings of the words they use, or at least to be having discussion to come to an agreement, or else everyone is talking at cross purposes.

    I just haven't come across your particular use of 'gender' v 'gender identity' before, and so I was wondering if you'd made it up, based on how you think the words should be defined, or if there were circles and discussions where this terminology was actually being used. Because if I were to start using 'gender' according to your definition, I think it would cause quite a bit of confusion in a lot of trans circles.

  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    edited June 2023
    @fineline I'm not sure why you're accusing me, a trans person, of making things up when I've talked about how I personally would categorise gender identity and related subjects. I also don't see how one trans person's take would 'cause confusion within the trans community'.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Pomona wrote: »
    @fineline I'm not sure why you're accusing me, a trans person, of making things up when I've talked about how I personally would categorise gender identity and related subjects. I also don't see how one trans person's take would 'cause confusion within the trans community'.

    Hi Pomona, it wasn't an accusation, as in I didn't think you were being deceitful or doing anything wrong. I simply couldn't tell from your wording if you were saying, (a) 'As a trans person, I personally think this wording would make more sense,' or (b) 'These terms do have different meanings now that are accepted and used by people in the trans community.'

    Quite simply, I found your response to my asking for a link so vague that I was trying to work out what you were saying. Because, if it were (a), then of course it would cause confusion if I started using the terms this way.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    @fineline apologies for my previous harsh response, I misunderstood your comment.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Thanks, @Pomona. Looking back at my post that caused confusion, I would add that when I said it would cause confusion in trans circles, I meant within any conversations I personally had with individuals in these circles - circles being things like Facebook groups, Reddit groups, etc. Not that the entire trans community would be thrown into confusion by me.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Pomona wrote: »
    But also, this is sort of what I mean about gender being assigned rather than sex as such - because 'boy' is very much a gender and not a sex, it's just conflated with specific sex characteristics such as having a penis. Indeed I would say that 'boy' is a different gender to 'man' and have known transmasc people who identify specifically as boys rather than male generally.
    It seems to me that a word like "boy" has more than one meaning, depending on context ('child with male sex characteristics', 'child of make gender', 'adult person of male gender regarded informally'). And even that imposes a degree of ordered classification and distinction between different meanings that may not exist in language as it is actually used, especially by neurotypical people.

    You said earlier that "sex" refers to chromosome combination, despite the use of the word "sex" predating any knowledge of chromosomes. That seems to me implausible.
    (I could go off on a lemma about Kripke's theory of rigid designators - nouns and names refer to the same essential substance in all possible worlds - and that it seems intuitive to neurodivergent people - it did to me when I first read Kripke - and why I now think it and similar less worked out theories of meaning must be wrong. But that's maybe a lemma too far.)
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    @Dafyd I think there's a difference between the effect of how words are used on X societal group, and what the majority thinks they mean. Most people wouldn't think of boys and men as being separate genders, but it's the experience of some trans people that this seems like an accurate description. Although many trans people are neurodivergent not all are, but most would view gender with more complexity than cis people generally do - because they've had to do so.

    Wrt sex being chromosonal, we know that intersex people exist and that being intersex is sometimes only discovered at a chromosonal level. In previous times there wasn't the same knowledge of genetics and intersrx conditions, although most cultures have had representations of people who we might now call intersex. Intersex people are very literally neither male nor female in terms of sex, but that's not always obvious from external/visible sex characteristics. So therefore a chromosonal definition is more accurate even if it's less commonly used.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    edited June 2023
    Pomona wrote: »
    Intersex people are very literally neither male nor female in terms of sex, but that's not always obvious from external/visible sex characteristics. So therefore a chromosonal definition is more accurate even if it's less commonly used.
    Linguistic prescriptivism is generally out of favour among linguists. Definitions are accurate as they reflect usage, not as they reflect reality. And the causal substrate of phenomena are not more real than the phenomena themselves.

    Also, catachresis, the application of a word as the closest available term to describe a situation that wasn't previously considered, is a thing. It results in polysemy. It doesn't render the previous usage inaccurate.

    Chromosomes are - as you know - only one determinant of physical sexual characteristics. There are other factors at work in the developmental pathways. Picking out chromosomal arrangement as the "accurate" meaning of sex in isolation from the other stages in the developmental pathway seems to me arbitrary and unwarranted. And it doesn't seem to me that the kind of essentialism implied ever does anybody any favours in any other context.

  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I am literally not finding anything from Google searches about 'sex' being used for chromosomes only, and 'gender' being used in contrast about genitalia.

    I see some sites and studies where gender and sex are contrasted, in terms of inner sense of identity v. physical (including both chromosomes and genitalia).

    Some where gender identity and gender are contrasted, in the same terms as above.

    Some where gender identity, gender and sex are contrasted (gender being a third category about societal expectations, while sex is still physical, about both chromosomes and genitalia).

    Pomona, I would find it helpful if you could give a link to where others say what you are saying here, as it isn't making practical sense to me, and isn't seeming helpful for trans people, but maybe if I saw it discussed by others in different words, it would make more sense, and would help me see that this is a wider discussion.
  • Chromosomes don't determine sex. You can have XXY females, XX males, X females, XY females, etc.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    Originally posted by Pomona (on 23 June):

    we're not assigned a sex at birth, but assigned a gender.

    Sorry for the delay, but it's taken me a couple of days to dig out my kids' birth certificates. On their birth certificates Box 1 is printed Surname / Name(s) and Box 2 is printed Sex.

    In what way is sex not assigned at birth when every baby is issued with an official document stating "sex"? Am I being dense here?

    I'm assuming Scottish birth certificates are no different to the rest of the U.K.

    But it's a sex assigned based on guesswork by a midwife's glance at a baby's genitalia rather than karyotyping - and intersex babies are not able to be recorded as intersex, but must be recorded as male or female even when that's not true.

    Aside from anything else, UK law doesn't differentiate between sex and gender - a trans person with a Gender Recognition Certificate gets a new birth certificate with their new sex.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Chromosomes don't determine sex. You can have XXY females, XX males, X females, XY females, etc.

    But only because they were either determined to be intersex at birth and arbitrarily assigned as male or female (since in most places babies must be registered as either male or female even if they aren't) or discovered they were intersex later in life after settling into a gender identity. That's why some intersex people are also trans, if their actual gender is different to their assigned gender.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    fineline wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Some people have intersex genitalia. It used to be the case that they were sometimes surgically "normalised" after birth. I should hope the practice is discontinued.

    Pomona mentioned earlier that they are assigned a binary sex regardless (so their birth certificate will say either male or female, rather than intersex), which of course is not ideal.

    As for surgery, you can read about it here.

    If they're assigned a sex, how can it be actually a sex? This is my point - if sex can be socially imposed like this it's not really accurate to think of it as biological sex when it's a social imposition. Surely that is a pretty textbook case of gender assignation...?
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    fineline wrote: »
    Originally posted by Pomona (on 23 June):

    we're not assigned a sex at birth, but assigned a gender.

    Sorry for the delay, but it's taken me a couple of days to dig out my kids' birth certificates. On their birth certificates Box 1 is printed Surname / Name(s) and Box 2 is printed Sex.

    In what way is sex not assigned at birth when every baby is issued with an official document stating "sex"? Am I being dense here?

    I'm assuming Scottish birth certificates are no different to the rest of the U.K.

    My birth certificate is English and says the same. I got the impression this is more about Pomona taking issue with the word 'sex' being used, as it could be an error, and that genitalia don't always match chromosomes. To me this would be about acknowledging this is assumption of binary sex based on genitalia, and errors being possible, since babies do not routinely have chromosome tests. I am not really seeing the logic of genitalia being moved to the category of gender, where gender is about societal expectations, not actual parts of one's body.

    To me, it makes more sense to have the chromosomal definition as a separate, more specific category, as most people don't have this tested. And for sex to be the binary label assigned based on genitalia. With two separate terms for physical aspects, separate from cultural expectations of behaviour, people's attention would be surely more directly drawn to the limitations of physical binary assumption.

    Someone showed me this webpage, which shows quite a straightforward way of depicting sex, gender and gender identity, as three separate concepts. And all three are societal concepts here, sex being a label, rather than an intrinsic thing.

    Societal expectations are in part based on that genitalia though. It doesn't mean the societal expectations are correct, but for eg giving baby girls pink things and baby boys blue things is literally just colour coding babies based on their genitalia.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    Firenze wrote: »
    And in general, people ask about a newborn 'What sex is the baby' rather than 'What gender'. Of course, having been allocated a sex (rightly or wrongly) on the basis of genitalia, the baby is then treated in a gendered way.

    I've never heard anyone ask what sex a baby is. Gender has become the usual word to use I think even though nobody can know what a newborn's actual gender identity is.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    fineline wrote: »
    I am literally not finding anything from Google searches about 'sex' being used for chromosomes only, and 'gender' being used in contrast about genitalia.

    I see some sites and studies where gender and sex are contrasted, in terms of inner sense of identity v. physical (including both chromosomes and genitalia).

    Some where gender identity and gender are contrasted, in the same terms as above.

    Some where gender identity, gender and sex are contrasted (gender being a third category about societal expectations, while sex is still physical, about both chromosomes and genitalia).

    Pomona, I would find it helpful if you could give a link to where others say what you are saying here, as it isn't making practical sense to me, and isn't seeming helpful for trans people, but maybe if I saw it discussed by others in different words, it would make more sense, and would help me see that this is a wider discussion.

    I'm a trans person and it's helpful for me, I don't see why it has to be useful for others or used in a wider discussion to be valid.

    I'm not saying that genitalia is somehow not part of the physical body, but that genitalia isn’t necessarily indicative of sex. Genitals can be misleading but chromosones aren't. Aside from anything else, gender affirming genital surgery exists and there is no one set of genitals that exists for one particular sex. The idea that some intersex people aren't obviously intersex at birth isn't new.
  • Pomona wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Chromosomes don't determine sex. You can have XXY females, XX males, X females, XY females, etc.

    But only because they were either determined to be intersex at birth and arbitrarily assigned as male or female (since in most places babies must be registered as either male or female even if they aren't) or discovered they were intersex later in life after settling into a gender identity. That's why some intersex people are also trans, if their actual gender is different to their assigned gender.

    There's nothing arbitrary about assigning female at birth to a person who has every external indication of being female, unless you want to say ALL assigning at birth is arbitrary. Chromosomally interesting women can go all their lives without knowing they're not XX. Many only find out when they're unable to conceive and the medical professionals start to investigate why and discover their ovaries are really testicular matter.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Pomona wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Chromosomes don't determine sex. You can have XXY females, XX males, X females, XY females, etc.

    But only because they were either determined to be intersex at birth and arbitrarily assigned as male or female (since in most places babies must be registered as either male or female even if they aren't) or discovered they were intersex later in life after settling into a gender identity. That's why some intersex people are also trans, if their actual gender is different to their assigned gender.

    There's nothing arbitrary about assigning female at birth to a person who has every external indication of being female, unless you want to say ALL assigning at birth is arbitrary. Chromosomally interesting women can go all their lives without knowing they're not XX. Many only find out when they're unable to conceive and the medical professionals start to investigate why and discover their ovaries are really testicular matter.

    All assigning at birth IS arbitrary if one baby girl has testicles and one has ovaries. Which is of course not to say that intersex women aren't really women if they identify as women - Caster Semenya is for eg a cis intersex woman, and is no less of a woman because she's intersex. The point I'm making is that the concept of sex is as much of a social construct as gender is if two people of the same 'sex' are so wildly biologically different. 'Biological sex' isn't very biological if it's just based on guesswork.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    It is not arbitrary, it’s based on probability - in that most people’s gender identity matches both their secondary sexual characteristics and their chromosomal inheritance. In the same way the existence of queer people doesn’t alter the fact that the majority of people are straight.

    I think that one of the tensions around gender identity in society, is that it’s purpose is changing,

    It used to be that recognising someone’s gender through non-verbal cues allowed you to predict what they would be likely to be interested in, what roles they might take in society, sexual orientation and their role in reproduction. It had a social function, to act as a rule of thumb to facilitate social interaction.

    It seems to be changing now to be a form of self-expression - to be more about an expression about how you feel internally than communicating this kind of information. One of the results of that, is the categories keep splitting, as people make more and more specific statements about themselves. (The same is true of sexual orientation to some extent.)

    I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with this, and social categories have always been mutable over time and place.

    However, I think it explains some of the impetus behind the questions about how people know they are transgender etc. I think sometimes people are focused on these questions because their view of the function of gender is different from the people they are asking.
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    Pomona wrote: »
    Firenze wrote: »
    And in general, people ask about a newborn 'What sex is the baby' rather than 'What gender'. Of course, having been allocated a sex (rightly or wrongly) on the basis of genitalia, the baby is then treated in a gendered way.

    I've never heard anyone ask what sex a baby is. Gender has become the usual word to use I think even though nobody can know what a newborn's actual gender identity is.

    IME, the question usually asked is what sex, rather than what gender. Although I think I'd probably phrase it as "What did they get?" to which the answer would be either boy or girl. But "what gender is the baby?" rather than "what sex is the baby?" sounds weird to me, though perhaps I'm old and out of touch.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited June 2023
    Also, it’s worth pointing out that parents will have to respond to the child some way - choose clothes, toys, paint rooms etc. Whatever they do they will create some kind of set of social expectations - and there is no way to know in advance if this will be congruent for that specific child, probability is pretty much all there is to go on.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    IME, the question usually asked is what sex, rather than what gender. Although I think I'd probably phrase it as "What did they get?" to which the answer would be either boy or girl. But "what gender is the baby?" rather than "what sex is the baby?" sounds weird to me, though perhaps I'm old and out of touch.

    Or probably even more commonly here, the question is "Did they get a girl or a boy". There may be some who ask "What sex is the baby", but no-one would ask "What gender is the baby". I don't think you're old and out of touch.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited June 2023
    It is possible it’s starting to change in the younger generation, but my friends are mostly past that stage so it’s difficult to tell. Though people talking about gender reveal parties on social media has become more common - usually when they go horribly wrong.
  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    I suspect "gender reveal" is used because inviting someone to a "sex reveal" party might be misconstrued ....

    Originally posted by Doublethink:
    Also, it’s worth pointing out that parents will have to respond to the child some way - choose clothes, toys, paint rooms etc.

    When we had our first, we hoped he would subsequently be joined by a couple of siblings, and so we aimed to buy clothes, toys etc which could be passed down. We painted the room pale green with green curtains with an animal print - elephants / lions / hippos IIRC and a matching animal frieze round the wall.

    I don't recall it being too difficult to buy clothes for a baby boy / toddler with the view of a potential younger sister wearing them in turn. Plus, our son wore some hand-me-downs from his female cousin.

    Nowadays I think it would be much harder. Clothes seem to be sharply divided between blue and pink, with trucks etc on the "boy" clothes and unicorns and sparkles on the "girl" clothes. Even things like wellie-boots which are eminently pass-downable, and used to come in primary colours or black seem to be pink or blue now.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    edited June 2023
    Pomona wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    There's nothing arbitrary about assigning female at birth to a person who has every external indication of being female, unless you want to say ALL assigning at birth is arbitrary. Chromosomally interesting women can go all their lives without knowing they're not XX. Many only find out when they're unable to conceive and the medical professionals start to investigate why and discover their ovaries are really testicular matter.

    All assigning at birth IS arbitrary if one baby girl has testicles and one has ovaries.
    That's only if you regard testicles and ovaries as the sole important thing.

    The root etymology of the word "sex" is the genitals, from which it became extended to reproductive function generally. Chromosomes are one factor in reproductive function and have a causal effect on genitals and secondary sexual characteristics. But they're only one causal factor. There is no good reason to say that they're what the word "sex" really refers to. Chromosomes are only of interest in so far as they affect the things we are interested in. We don't have a special word for any other pair of chromosomes.

    If a woman has XY chromosomes but the Y chromosome is completely inactive to the point that she is able to conceive and bear children (according to Wikipedia this can happen) then it makes no sense to describe her sex as male. In the context of talking about intersex people and possible fertility you might talk about her as intersex. In most contexts her sex is female.
    The point I'm making is that the concept of sex is as much of a social construct as gender is if two people of the same 'sex' are so wildly biologically different. 'Biological sex' isn't very biological if it's just based on guesswork.
    All concepts are constructed by humans. We don't believe there are Platonic Forms that determine what concepts we ought to have. The concepts we have are determined by the use we have for them. Concepts are socially constructed, but their application to reality is determined by what they're applied to.

    The question isn't whether the two women in question are biologically different in some ways, but whether they're similar enough biologically in the ways the word "sex" is used to describe.

    Monotremes lay eggs. That's wildly different from placental mammals. Taxonomists could have erected a new Class for them in the way they erected a new Order for tuataras. But it was decided that producing milk made momotremes similar enough to count them as mammals.

    We need concepts because the world has more phenomena than we can handle without generalising. Applying a concept says (correctly or incorrectly) that an entity is sufficiently similar to a paradigm example to be handled in the same way for a particular purpose. Because there are more entities and phenomena than concepts sometimes we come across phenomena that don't fit any paradigm example well. Then we have to either come up with a new concept or extend one of the concepts we've already got. In the latter case, we have ways of clarifying that this new specimen is not a typical case and is far from the paradigm in some respects.

    In the case of sex it seems to me that we started with two concepts based on two paradigms and then adjust those concepts or introduce a third concept of intersex for people who don't fit those paradigms in one way or another depending on why we think that particular conceptual framework is relevant.
  • Pomona wrote: »
    Firenze wrote: »
    And in general, people ask about a newborn 'What sex is the baby' rather than 'What gender'. Of course, having been allocated a sex (rightly or wrongly) on the basis of genitalia, the baby is then treated in a gendered way.

    I've never heard anyone ask what sex a baby is. Gender has become the usual word to use I think even though nobody can know what a newborn's actual gender identity is.

    IME, the question usually asked is what sex, rather than what gender. Although I think I'd probably phrase it as "What did they get?" to which the answer would be either boy or girl. But "what gender is the baby?" rather than "what sex is the baby?" sounds weird to me, though perhaps I'm old and out of touch.
    Ditto for my and my experience, substituting “What did they have?” for “What did they get?” (“Get” wouldn’t be used in this context here.) “Is it a girl or a boy?” would also be common.

    I don’t think I’ve ever heard “What gender is the baby?”

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Ditto for my and my experience, substituting “What did they have?” for “What did they get?” (“Get” wouldn’t be used in this context here.) “Is it a girl or a boy?” would also be common.

    I don’t think I’ve ever heard “What gender is the baby?”

    The usual here is "A girl or a boy?" Nothing as formal as "What gender is the baby?"
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    If I'd been asked what gender the Daflings were I'd have had to say something like, well I suppose they're probably girls - but we don't know yet, or but that's for them to say, or something of the sort.
  • HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
    The first question about a newborn should be "Is the baby healthy?"
  • HarryCH wrote: »
    The first question about a newborn should be "Is the baby healthy?"
    Did anyone suggest that asking whether the baby is a girl or boy is the first question asked?

    My first question is usually “How is everyone?,” meaning baby and mom. My second question is usually “What’s the baby’s name?,” which often (but not always, of course) makes asking “girl or boy?” unnecessary.

  • I think it was well said above (I forget who) that societal use of terms like sex and gender are changing. We're in a time of flux, and during such times people get confused, some are hurt, some are angry, some are going "who the fuck cares?" and so forth. Everything is higgledy-piggledy. At this point it's a question of who will control the narrative. Ideally a group of people with some identifiable or agreed-upon characteristic will get to decide for themselves what they want to be called. But as Doublethink pointed out above, LGBTQ+ people are in the minority, and people in the minority often get dumped on. And it's understandable if they lack patience for us cishets who don't understand it all. There are many of us, I trow, who want to understand and blunder unwittingly.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Pomona wrote: »
    fineline wrote: »
    Pomona, I would find it helpful if you could give a link to where others say what you are saying here, as it isn't making practical sense to me, and isn't seeming helpful for trans people, but maybe if I saw it discussed by others in different words, it would make more sense, and would help me see that this is a wider discussion.

    I'm a trans person and it's helpful for me, I don't see why it has to be useful for others or used in a wider discussion to be valid.

    Hmm... I'm finding myself increasingly confused by your logic, Pomona. I didn't say it had to be useful for others or more widely used. I was initially asking if it was more widely used, or if it was a definition/distinction you made up because it was personally useful to you. I was asking because it would be useful for me, also a trans person, in wider trans conversations. It doesn't have to be useful to me, of course. However, if it is a more widely used term, then it would be, and I would find it helpful to read more about it.

    Your reply to that previous question I asked, where you seemed quite indignant that I asked if you were making it up, led me to believe it was a more widely used definition, and so, because I assume you do a lot of reading around this, I asked for some links.

    Is what I'm saying making sense to you? Are you now saying this is your personal definition, which you are exploring here? Or simply that it's more widely known but you don't want to give links (which of course you are not obliged to do)?

    I'm confused because normally in a trans/non-binary group, if someone said something I was unfamiliar with, I would ask about it and they might give me some links, sharing resources, etc., in a friendly way, and I would do the same with them. There is no ulterior motive. If you don't want to, you can simply say you don't want to. If you still don't understand what I am saying, it seems best to discontinue talking to each other, because I find it exhausting when people continually argue with things I didn't say, and I don't want any more of that.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    At this point it's a question of who will control the narrative. Ideally a group of people with some identifiable or agreed-upon characteristic will get to decide for themselves what they want to be called.

    But therein lies a problem, because we're talking about controlling the narrative around sex/gender - and that narrative applies to everyone.

    With many EDI* issues the principle of a minority deciding what they should be called has no impact on anyone else: if Welsh people decide they should be called Cymraeg it makes no difference to whether French people are still French or English people are still English. But with transgender what's being changed is the very meaning of man/male and woman/female. That change of meaning perforce changes what everyone else calls themselves as well, which to me means it's not something that can or should be left entirely to the minority to define.

    .

    *= Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    At this point it's a question of who will control the narrative. Ideally a group of people with some identifiable or agreed-upon characteristic will get to decide for themselves what they want to be called.

    But therein lies a problem, because we're talking about controlling the narrative around sex/gender - and that narrative applies to everyone.

    With many EDI* issues the principle of a minority deciding what they should be called has no impact on anyone else: if Welsh people decide they should be called Cymraeg it makes no difference to whether French people are still French or English people are still English. But with transgender what's being changed is the very meaning of man/male and woman/female. That change of meaning perforce changes what everyone else calls themselves as well, which to me means it's not something that can or should be left entirely to the minority to define.

    .

    *= Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

    Actually, I can't see how it does. I am male and a man and I can't see how trans input on those changes that.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited June 2023
    I'm not seeing change, as much as plurality. Rather like saying SSM somehow 'devalues' my marriage. The concept of marriage- that of two individuals committing to a set of reciprocal obligations - remains, just the range of participants is expanded.

    Similarly the idea of gender - of the perception of the self as occupying a particular place on the male/female bandwidth doesn't, ISTM, displace anyone else's. I am Unfeminine Female, different to Maternal Female - actually maybe you could model it after gaming alignments? Or think in terms of Male-ness or Female-ness rather than two utterly distinct categories.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    At this point it's a question of who will control the narrative. Ideally a group of people with some identifiable or agreed-upon characteristic will get to decide for themselves what they want to be called.

    But therein lies a problem, because we're talking about controlling the narrative around sex/gender - and that narrative applies to everyone.

    With many EDI* issues the principle of a minority deciding what they should be called has no impact on anyone else: if Welsh people decide they should be called Cymraeg it makes no difference to whether French people are still French or English people are still English. But with transgender what's being changed is the very meaning of man/male and woman/female. That change of meaning perforce changes what everyone else calls themselves as well, which to me means it's not something that can or should be left entirely to the minority to define.

    .

    *= Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

    Actually, I can't see how it does. I am male and a man and I can't see how trans input on those changes that.

    It changes what the words "male" and "man" mean, and therefore changes that meaning for everybody.
  • Firenze wrote: »
    I'm not seeing change, as much as plurality. Rather like saying SSM somehow 'devalues' my marriage. The concept of marriage- that of two individuals committing to a set of reciprocal obligations - remains, just the range of participants is expanded.

    SSM was unarguably a change to the concept of marriage, from being between a man and a woman to being between two individuals regardless of their sex/gender.
    Similarly the idea of gender - of the perception of the self as occupying a particular place on the male/female bandwidth doesn't, ISTM, displace anyone else's.

    It changes the whole fundamental basis by which that "bandwidth" is defined.
    I am Unfeminine Female, different to Maternal Female - actually maybe you could model it after gaming alignments? Or think in terms of Male-ness or Female-ness rather than two utterly distinct categories.

    As you brought up gaming alignments, ISTM that this whole thing is more like saying Lawful doesn't have to require any particular set of actions or adherence to laws at all, and anyone can be Lawful as long as they identify as such, regardless of what they actually do. I'm sure any gamer can quickly see how that would in fact render the concepts of "Lawful" and "Chaotic" utterly meaningless, and would make the whole alignment system useless as it wouldn't tell you anything about how the character can be expected to act in any given situation.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    But with transgender what's being changed is the very meaning of man/male and woman/female. That change of meaning perforce changes what everyone else calls themselves as well, which to me means it's not something that can or should be left entirely to the minority to define.
    I think it's not so much changing the meaning as disambiguating the meaning. Once we realise that sex and gender are different we have to decide which one we're talking about in any given context.

  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    KarlLB wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    At this point it's a question of who will control the narrative. Ideally a group of people with some identifiable or agreed-upon characteristic will get to decide for themselves what they want to be called.

    But therein lies a problem, because we're talking about controlling the narrative around sex/gender - and that narrative applies to everyone.

    With many EDI* issues the principle of a minority deciding what they should be called has no impact on anyone else: if Welsh people decide they should be called Cymraeg it makes no difference to whether French people are still French or English people are still English. But with transgender what's being changed is the very meaning of man/male and woman/female. That change of meaning perforce changes what everyone else calls themselves as well, which to me means it's not something that can or should be left entirely to the minority to define.

    .

    *= Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

    Actually, I can't see how it does. I am male and a man and I can't see how trans input on those changes that.

    It changes what the words "male" and "man" mean, and therefore changes that meaning for everybody.

    Whereas I would say it just challenges your belief that you perception of male/man is the same for everyone. Was it ever? I'm reminded of an incident somewhere in the early history of colonial India when some captured British soldiers were dressed as dancing girls, because they were clean-shaven. Lacking beards they clearly could not be men.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    At this point it's a question of who will control the narrative. Ideally a group of people with some identifiable or agreed-upon characteristic will get to decide for themselves what they want to be called.

    But therein lies a problem, because we're talking about controlling the narrative around sex/gender - and that narrative applies to everyone.

    With many EDI* issues the principle of a minority deciding what they should be called has no impact on anyone else: if Welsh people decide they should be called Cymraeg it makes no difference to whether French people are still French or English people are still English. But with transgender what's being changed is the very meaning of man/male and woman/female. That change of meaning perforce changes what everyone else calls themselves as well, which to me means it's not something that can or should be left entirely to the minority to define.

    .

    *= Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

    Actually, I can't see how it does. I am male and a man and I can't see how trans input on those changes that.

    It changes what the words "male" and "man" mean, and therefore changes that meaning for everybody.

    You and I are about as affected by this as we are over debates as to whether Scots is a separate language or a dialect of English. It doesn't change the form of the language we speak or its name. We remain English speakers.

    It does affect Scots speakers, because it questions whether they are speaking English or not.

    Similarly, questions about the periphery of what "man" encompasses affects those deemed to be on that periphery, not those of us bang in the middle.

    Your thinking on this is painfully binary.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host

    As you brought up gaming alignments, ISTM that this whole thing is more like saying Lawful doesn't have to require any particular set of actions or adherence to laws at all, and anyone can be Lawful as long as they identify as such, regardless of what they actually do. I'm sure any gamer can quickly see how that would in fact render the concepts of "Lawful" and "Chaotic" utterly meaningless, and would make the whole alignment system useless as it wouldn't tell you anything about how the character can be expected to act in any given situation.

    I think it more akin to having thought “lawful” meant adherent to the laws of of the Swordcoast, and then realising it can coherently mean adherent to any rule code.

  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    edited June 2023
    It seems to me more like finding that orcs and elves are no longer always chaotic and dwarves and hobgoblins are no longer always lawful.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    You and I are about as affected by this as we are over debates as to whether Scots is a separate language or a dialect of English. It doesn't change the form of the language we speak or its name. We remain English speakers.

    It does affect Scots speakers, because it questions whether they are speaking English or not.

    OK, but if someone started posting here in Scots I'm pretty sure they'd be told to knock it off as this is an English-language site and lots of people can't understand them. I'm also 100% certain that anyone complaining about not being able to understand it wouldn't be told that they're a prejudiced bigot because the person posting it defines it as English and therefore it is, and any lack of understanding is entirely the fault of the reader.
    Similarly, questions about the periphery of what "man" encompasses affects those deemed to be on that periphery, not those of us bang in the middle.

    I'm no longer sure that there is a single characteristic or criterion that can be used to define "man" other than each individual's self-identification.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited June 2023
    KarlLB wrote: »
    You and I are about as affected by this as we are over debates as to whether Scots is a separate language or a dialect of English. It doesn't change the form of the language we speak or its name. We remain English speakers.

    It does affect Scots speakers, because it questions whether they are speaking English or not.

    OK, but if someone started posting here in Scots I'm pretty sure they'd be told to knock it off as this is an English-language site and lots of people can't understand them. I'm also 100% certain that anyone complaining about not being able to understand it wouldn't be told that they're a prejudiced bigot because the person posting it defines it as English and therefore it is, and any lack of understanding is entirely the fault of the reader.
    I fail to see how that is relevant to this discussion

    Assuming you are, as @KarlLB put it, “a male and a man,” I’d say you might have a point if you could show that the end result of this discussion in culture is likely to be that you can no longer accurately identify as “a male and a man.”

    But you haven’t shown that or even attempted to.

    Meanwhile, what @mousethief said.

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    I’d say you might have a point if you could show that the end result of this discussion in culture is likely to be that you can no longer accurately identify as “a male and a man.”

    What does it even mean to "accurately identify as" something when that something has no definition against which to measure said accuracy?
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    I’d say you might have a point if you could show that the end result of this discussion in culture is likely to be that you can no longer accurately identify as “a male and a man.”

    What does it even mean to "accurately identify as" something when that something has no definition against which to measure said accuracy?
    Who has put forth the idea that the words should have no definition? What is being discussed is examining and rethinking the definition, not doing away with it.

    I seriously doubt that the end result will be that you and I are no longer male and men. And you haven’t shown how it affects you or lessens your maleness or your man-ness if someone else whom you or others might not have thought of as male or a man is now thought of that way.

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