You should really do that anyway if you are going to require id to vote.
I mean didn’t decide person-by-person, but situation-by-situation. Eg it might be acceptable for our hypothetical 18 year old to go to class with 12 year olds, but she should not be able to compete against them in sports. This is one reason I’m opposed to giving trans women the exact legal status of women, and trans men the exact legal status of men, because it removes this discretion.
You seem to define “woman” strictly as an adult human with female anatomy, yes? (Or is it with female genetics?) And you say that definition has not changed.
But if “man” and “woman” only ever referred to biology, wouldn’t we have different terms available to describe the different sociological categories? To describe people who fill the masculine role in society and those who fill the feminine role?
The fact that we do not is evidence, to me, that biology and gender role and gender expression and gender identity were all assumed to match up when the language was being developed. There was no need to have different words for the many ways the human race is divided into two genders or sexes, because “woman” and “man” covered them all.
Of course. Wearing a dress is gender expression – and that only because society says that dresses are gendered. But as you recognize, that doesn’t change what Bowie’s gender identity was.
No one’s suggesting that just because you wear a dress you must be a woman. This feels like a strawman argument.
Powers &8^]
Okay. Sorry then for the interrogation.
Well that’s just one reason why requiring ID to vote is a bad idea.
Powers &8^]
I don’t know. I’m far from an expert.
This doesn’t concern me at all. People generally don’t cut off their right arms in order to lose weight; people do not sacrifice a large part of their self-image to gain a smaller part. Transitioning is pretty much for people who are very significantly conflicted in their gender-identity. In a free society, boys can engage in lots of feminine behaviors without transitioning.
This, to me, of about as little concern as the changing of definitions in the language we all use. Gay marriage didn’t destroy marriage; transitioning won’t destroy “manhood.” (I could almost wish it would.)
edited for grammar
I don’t necessarily see lack of ID as a problem. If an XY person is trying to get into an XX space, getting an ID with F on it should not be seen as an insurmountable obstacle. The amount of effort that takes is minimal. If someone can’t even do that, they can use their genetic-specific space. And the same if someone has X or Q. If the rule was “XX or F use the women’s and XY or M use the men’s”, it would be a very clear rule to understand and enforce.
Adult person with a female reproductive system. Generally, this means XX chromosomes, but there are rare genetic abnormalities that can lead to someone with a different chromosome makeup but still have elements of a female reproductive system—like a vagina.
But if “man” and “woman” only ever referred to biology, wouldn’t we have different terms available to describe the different sociological categories? To describe people who fill the masculine role in society and those who fill the feminine role?
No, why would we need to have these terms for that? I’m actually amazed that you think an idea like this isn’t laughably sexist.
I’m wearing pants and t-shirt right now and no makeup. I just gave my employees a bunch of instructions in a nonsense manner. My spouse is taking care of the kids while I decompress on my electronic gadget after a long day at work, bringing home the bacon. Should I be calling myself a man right now because I’m being somewhat masculine right now?
We don’t need to come up with terms for “sociological categories”, because we don’t need these categories to begin with. I’m a woman regardless of the “role” I’m filling or how feminine and masculine I behave. Everyone vacillates between feminine and masculine because these are highly subjective social constructs.
The fact that we do not is evidence, to me, that biology and gender role and gender expression and gender identity were all assumed to match up when the language was being developed. There was no need to have different words for the many ways the human race is divided into two genders or sexes, because “woman” and “man” covered them all.
I really appreciate you explaining your thought process. It’s this kind of frankness that is needed so we can identify the crux of disagreement.
Some people make themselves seriously ill trying to lose weight because they have a warped view of their own body. Typically teenage girls responding to societal pressures around appearance. The same group who are now transitioning in record numbers…
It destroys “manhood” in a literal sense by encouraging boys to take unnecessary drugs and sterilizing themselves. But ok.
Well… it is, to an extent.
Certainly a lot of people would argue that we shouldn’t have gender roles, and that no clothing, hairstyle, or behavior should be seen as more masculine or more feminine than any other. But that’s not quite the society we live in, not yet. Most human societies do have separate gender roles.
And even then it doesn’t address gender identity, which, if we take people at their words, is separate from both physical sex and sometimes even from gender expression.
And so I think most gender scholars would say that “man” and “woman” are the sociological divisions, not the anatomical ones – because that was the easiest way to identify which division someone was in back when we thought there was only one axis. Certainly a lot easier than looking into their pants.
Powers &8^]
I genuinely don’t understand what this could possibly mean. It sounds incredibly sexist, really–that there is some innate sense of girlness or whatever that’s separate from both biology and culture. If someone comes to me, biologically male, and presenting as a man in every external way, and yet nevertheless claims to be a woman–I’m going to think they’re mentally ill.
I can’t accept this as equivalent. Eating disorders are disorders, but gender transitioning can, in some cases, be the accepted medical treatment for a disorder. No doctor is going to prescribe bingeing and purging, but doctors have prescribed gender transition. I think you have created a false equivalence.
We’ve had slavery too. Humans were in two classes—free and slave—and this division was the basis on how rights were allocated, roles were divvied up, and human worth was assigned.
Imagine if in modern times, people still acted as though these divisions were still useful in “typing” people. Instead of treating free vs slave as strictly a legal matter, people used “free” as shorthand for the white attractive, and classy people and “slave” as shorthand for everyone else.
Sounds fucked up, right? This is what your sociological gender categories sound like to me.
Gender roles were created when women were at their most oppressed. They were deprived of educations and blocked from most high paying jobs, so they were reliant on men for survival. Their value was tied to sexual attractiveness and their ability to bear children. They had no political power. They were trained to see themselves as intellectually inferior to men and of lower social status. They were the slaves; men were free.
Just why in the world should anyone treat these oppressive times as the blueprint for “man” and “woman” social constructs? It’s so ridiculously sexist and regressive, and serves no need. It’s not like the sky will fall if there is no “sociological category” for people who act just like a John Wayne character.
If you consider yourself progressive, seriously think about what you are saying.
Why is that sexist?
If someone comes to me, biologically male, and presenting as a man in every external way, and yet nevertheless claims to be a woman–I’m going to think they’re mentally ill.
But that’s exactly what gender dysphoria is.
Powers &8^]
Gender roles have existed for a long time before that. There’s a reason why people with female anatomy also tended to be the ones staying close to home and caring for offspring. Thankfully, we’ve moved beyond that being the only way to exist, but I think those tendencies are still present. (We could argue over whether they’re innate or learned, and whether they’re a result of hormonal influence or genetic factors, but I think that’s a separate discussion.)
I’m not suggesting we should have rigid gender roles. But I am suggesting that at the current point in our society, most people are more comfortable fitting into one or the other, to greater or lesser degrees.
That’s why schools still have father-daughter dances and why many women have their fathers walk them down the aisle and why we have “moms groups” instead of “parents groups”. They’re all vestiges of the patriarchal system you describe, yes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Powers &8^]
Gender dysphorics change their presentation to help resolve the dysphoria. At least in principle, this altered presentation causes society to treat them as their preferred gender.
An individual who hasn’t made an effort to change their presentation is a mystery to me. Either they do not experience distress from society’s treatment (and hence no dysphoria), or are unwilling to make any effort in fixing it.
Either way, I don’t understand what “space” there is for a sense of man/womanness between societal roles and biology.
Not ALL gender role differences are social constructs. There are some real brain-structure differences between men and women. The ideal of demolishing social barriers is to open opportunity for all: we are (damn slowly) getting away from “surgeons=men, nurses=women.” But we might not be able to get beyond such things as women being slightly better than men at facial recognition. It might be hard-wired in brain structure.
I certainly agree with you that many conventional gender role differences have been harmful and have limited women’s opportunities. I don’t want to take what you say so far as to deny the opportunity for gender transition to someone who may benefit from it in a real medical way. This goes a lot farther than just “I wanna wear a dress” or even “I want breasts.” There are some trans-women for whom not having breasts was as disfiguring to their self-image than the loss of my fingers would be to me.
Some people do suffer from gender dysphoria, a psychological disorder. Some people don’t, but still dislike their appearance. But it’s still their body. It is neither a “fit” nor not a “fit” for who they are. It IS who they are.
The mind is simply a product of the brain. The brain is part of the body.
Well, whose hands would they be? Of course they would be yours.
Losing your fingers would suck pretty bad. That could be a devastating blow to your psyche, I’ve no doubt. But that’s your body. That’s how it is - for good and bad. It is the entirety of what you are, whether you look like Chris Hemsworth or Marty Feldman, whether you’re as healthy as an Olympic athlete or stricken with ALS, and whether you can accept the reality of your body or not. It can be unfair, of that there is no doubt, but it’s true. You can’t be “Born into the wrong body.” There was no you to be born “into” anything.
It’s the extreme unhappiness with the body and the patient’s belief that changing it will fix the problem that is the similarity. Again, I’m not saying all gender dysphoria is comparable to anorexia, but I think for a subset of patients they could be different responses to the same pressures. The fact transition is a valid treatment in other cases doesn’t mean it can’t be wrongly prescribed, especially when patients are to some extent diagnosing themselves.