If you want to say that the superificial details of language are a social construct, okay. But that’s just saying that the aspects that are a social construct are a social construct, and the aspects that are not are not.
The structure of human language is not infinitely and arbitrarily variable.
Ultimately the question of how to define the phrase “social construct” is a hijack, albeit a meaningful and appropriate one.
You use the term as you see fit. I’m not going to change how I use it. In order for us to communicate in this thread, we should use other terms, even if only temporary ones.
You now understand that I am not asserting that gender (trans or otherwise) has no anchors outside of socially shared notions. But that, at the same time, I am asserting that the specifics (including the existence of transgender identities that one can come out as) could be quite different.
Of course not. If disability is a social construct, then those that society deems “disabled” may earn less money.
I agree with AHunter3. And other than to assert that I didn’t cherry pick anything (I took the first definition I found, which happens to be from a pretty reputable source) I’m dropping out of that discussion.
Yes, it is. That’s exactly what it means.
Regardless of what we call it, I think you and I would agree that very few things are fully disconnected from anything except arbitrary social notions. They may be mostly that but still be constrained by other factors. Consider socially shared notions about what’s moral versus immoral. A culture is unlikely to arise that considers randomly killing other citizens to be a moral imperative, something that everyone should aspire to do in order to be perceived as a good citizen.
I am totally with you on the annoyance about “everyone is born a blank slate, our realities are all socially constructed”. Not that I have much tolerance for “everything is genetic” and all that sociobiology stuff. Both extremes are rather ludicrous propositions.
I’m mystified as to how you would infer such an (obviously stupid) claim from what I said. Logically it seems to require the additional assumption that anything that has a biological basis defines a real biological concept of race.
You appear to be arguing that if something is a social construct it has no basis (ever, at all) in biology. “People who can roll their tongues” doesn’t happen to be socially defined as a race, but it could be. Just as “people who have dark skin” happens to be socially defined as a race currently in the US. AND there is a biological basis underlying skin color. And biological factors that interact with our social concepts of gender.
I’ve made clear that I’m saying (with cites) that it is the definition of the term “social construct” (in this context).
Of course there is a biological basis for skin color. That does not imply that there is a valid biological concept of race that maps to skin color.
Of course people with any attribute could be socially defined as a race. That does not imply that any of these attributes map to a valid biological concept of race.
Technically nothing humans do is outside of the confines of biology.
Sure, but then nothing humans do is outside of the environment.
Also true!
Sorry, I was trying to be clever instead of clear, and failed at both.
The post you were responding to stated the there’s a biological basis to skin color. It explicitly noted that social concepts of race attach a ton of non-biological stuff to the concept of skin color. You somehow interpreted that post as arguing that for an objectively real concept of race based on skin color. Which is, plainly, not what was being said - just as you, plainly, were not arguing against a biological basis for skin color.
But the post I replied to did not just say “there’s a biological basis to skin color”, it said
You can get a lot of different meanings out of a post when you only quote one and a half sentences from it.
That’s not how I read the OP. To me it appeared to be that feeling that way proves something that negates the whole concept of gender being less than concrete and binary
Thanks. Yes race is a social construct which, like many other social constructs, starts with a basis in the physical world and then builds a lot of other baggage onto that underlying physical thing. So, in the US, it starts with skin color and geographic heritage, ignoring that skin color is a continuum and humans cross-breed every which way, and slices people into constructed “races”, which are then often viewed as distinct from each other. And that creates a social reality that has real-world implications for the people who get lumped into each category.
That’s really it. You’ve gotten it exactly right.
My explanation for it is: Did you ever by mistake put your right shoe on your left foot and left shoe on your right foot? Remember how weird that felt? If you walked a mile like that, it would harm your feet. Here’s the key fact: There’s nothing wrong with your shoes and there’s nothing wrong with your feet. It’s just the mismatch that’s the problem. Likewise, there’s nothing wrong with my mind and nothing wrong with my body, but the mismatch produces suffering.
I had one of those too. Different, but similar and parallel. I had a mismatch between who everyone thought I was, based on seeing that I was a male kid, and who I actually was, which was clearly one of the girls.
I’m not trans like Johanna *. I rejected the notion that my body needed to be female in order for me to be one of the girls. It’s like a gay guy rejecting the notion that, in order to be attracted to male people, he should have been born female.
But yeah the mismatch produced a lot of suffering. Especially before I fully figured it out.