So you are in agreement with Novelty Bobble, who wrote
And in disagreement with Ranch_Dip, who said you should not use such words - which would include words like “cisgirl.”
I don’t entirely agree or entirely disagree with either of them.
I think
a) One’s gender identity is valid regardless of one’s morphology;
b) Going around worrying that drawing any attention to anyone’s morphology will detract from the legitimacy of someone’s gender identity is not as oh-so-tolerant and socially conscious as it may look from first glance — it’s actually all interwoven with the fear, or the hidden belief, that if one’s morphology isn’t the one that usually goes with that particular gender identity, then that gender identity really is less legitimate, so we best tiptoe around such matters.
c) Some people — intersex folks among them, but not only them, mind you — choose to identify as explicitly having THIS sex and THAT gender. We have that right, and anyone stating that morphology should not be spoken of should reread b immediately above, and then go stifle. Many of us in this particular basket are more marginalized than transgender people in general, and some of us are more than a bit tired of a single-faceted embrace of trans awareness that doesn’t bother including the rest of us and our situations.
As puzzlegal noted, the terms “male” and “female” are frequently used about gender as well as about sex, and have been so used since long before current controversies about trans-inclusive language.
Some examples:
Do these accessories and headgear have biological sex? No. Do they actually require female or male biological sex on the part of their wearer in order to function? No.
What they are intended to correspond with is their wearer’s gender, that is, whether the wearer presents and dresses as a woman or as a man.
There are innumerable similar examples where the adjective “female” or “male” designates gender rather than biological sex. No matter how much tidy-minded prescriptivists may like to formally assign them to some artificially determined “language of sex”.
How do you prefer to be addressed and described?
I’ve heard of no-one in this thread who would disagree with this. I think you are tilting at windmills.
I would say that none of those terms are without their own issues and certainly none are perfectly suited for use in all circumstances seeing as they can all cover a range of biological and mental states, some of which may not be part of the subject under discussion. i.e. they cannot always be used as a substitute for a term such as “biolically female”.
That doesn’t even begin to address the fact that many people find them offensive in their own right.
A post was merged into an existing topic: RangerLoops troll posts
No word is perfectly suited to use in all circumstances. Those words happen to be perfectly suited for the discussion of trans girls playing sports, however.
I do know a woman who objects to being called “assigned female at birth” because she says, “I wasn’t just assigned, I WAS female”. This is ironic, because the same part of her that thinks “I was always female” is the part of trans girls that says “I was mis-assigned, I was always female, too.”
You seem to contradict yourself here. I don’t think you can honestly claim that they are “perfectly suited” for all discussions regarding trans girls and sport (which is much more in line with your first sentence).
I think you are trying too hard to find problems. I’m not sure why. I was clear that “trans girls playing sports” is a circumstance in which those terms work very well.
When considering the question “Do trans girl athletes have an advantage?” it is no use relying merely on the terms “transgirl” “cisgirl” “AMAB” to have that discussion. They are wholly inadequate.
Your even more nebulous title of “trans girls playing sport” can give us no indication of what terms or level of precision might be needed.
I’m not saying they can never be used, I’m saying don’t presume that they must be used. Use the language that helps the conversation and shared understanding even if that is language that would be inappropriate in other circumstances.
Isn’t your suggestion to just use “male” in those discussion of transgirls in sports?
Stepping in where angels fear to tread. However the subject of personal identity is something I find particularly important and this goes to the core.
This is a mess of other threads, so there are a few conversations going on.
However there is a lot of missing the wood for the trees.
Right now societies are in the midst of working out the entire question of transgender and its associated implications. Questions like whether the semantics of sex are the same as gender are useless. Up until a decade ago they had identical semantics. For the majority of English speakers they still do. Attempts to redefine them in a manner useful to the subject of transgender are a work in progress. Like anything in language, it is fluid, and eventually, for better or worse common usage will win out, no matter what anyone might hope for. In ten years language will have moved on and I doubt anyone will be able to predict what the accepted meanings will be. Attempts to be prescriptive now don’t really help the conversation.
For those that are navigating the twilight zone between conventional identities, life is hard enough without pious arguments from the peanut gallery about what people should be called.
Conversations are objectively discussing the subject of gender identities do need a common ground. This is both a scientific and human question. However one thing I have realised is that for every person who is or has navigated the question, there is a different story. There are a huge number of factors at play, and about the only thing you can do is be cognisant of an individual’s history. AMAB might be fine for some people, it is a statement of historical fact. Whatever was written on their birth certificate is a data point in their life. How important it is can vary dramatically. The taxonomy of potential combinations of circumstances is way wider. People get to where they are in life by all manner of paths with different forces acting them. For issues of identity the path can be as important as the start and end points. Dismissing that is naive. Insisting on the broad validity of a simplistic set of definitions makes sensible conversation impossible and demeans those being described.
In any other conversation the end point - the identity a person currently has - is all that matters. That is just common politeness.
The number of times when someone asserts that genetic identity is a fixed unquestionable basis for discussion is a worry. One feels that a significant background education is needed.
I am reminded of a book by the late Robert Hughes, Culture of Complaint. He describes a particularly toxic form of political correctness where bystanders define the terms of reference and allowed language of a subject area they have no skin in. It becomes a form of cultural imperialism, where they, the educated politically correct dictate the terms of discourse to the lesser beings. They then dictate when anyone is using prohibited language and meet out punishment. Even if you are a member of the group being described, you can’t use language that isn’t allowed by the PC elite.
For that discussion I think that using “male” or “biologically male” would be useful to distinguish the concept of biological sex from gender because in that thread the degree to which male phenotypical traits are retained is central to any advantage an athlete may have.
That is the term I use and the definition of it. I can’t force others to conform to that but nor do I think, once defined, there is any substantial confusion over what I mean by it. Others may have a different opinion.
A path of gender polymorphism does complicate an end point of sexual dimorphism.
These statements are, of course, correct. I do it all the time (particularly when I need a term that does not have the age implications of “boy” or “man”). (And of course in other contexts there’s backlash against using “female” as a noun because it’s misogynistic and pejorative – which also conflates sex and gender).
And, of course, we have traditionally conflated gender with sex and assumed all sorts of things about people based on those conflations. And I thought the point was that we aren’t supposed to do that anymore. Much of this “trans-inclusive language” seems to be about not making those assumption, conflations, and being more precise.
So, what I don’t understand, is why we are introducing a new set of terms (AFAB/AMAB) that perpetuate this (outdated; undesirable) conflation of gender and sex. Calling a child a “male” is not supposed to impose the gender-expectations of “male headgear” – it’s supposed to suggest the same thing as the “male” end of the extension cord.
I may be (probably am) a “tidy-minded prescriptivist”, but it’s not that I don’t know that the quoted statements are true, it’s that I thought we’re supposed to be moving away from these assumptions.
If calling Buck Angel a “white female” is unhelpful (and it is), it’s not because it’s untrue. Mr. Angel has “remained female throughout.” It seems to me that the solution is to called him a “white man” and move away from the gender-sex conflation that (it seems to me, as a male-man) is unhelpful to trans-inclusivity.
I still don’t understand why you think that “male” is clearer than “assigned male at birth” or “transgirl”. Male can refer simply to cisboys. “Should males be allowed to play on girls teams?” I would be opposed to allowing all males to be allowed to play on girls teams, but I’m fine with the tiny number of transgirls (of which a tinier number are athletes) to play.
I say this not to revisit that other topic, but to discuss the language, because I really don’t understand why you think male or even biological male is better for that topic – it’s basically too general. You seem to be confused about what “assigned” means and “male” means in the phrase “assigned male at birth”, so may that’s why you choose to use the more general term.
I realize that I didn’t respond to you and I really don’t know what to think about it (other than to note that I don’t have these conversations outside of the SDMB). I find this very confusing.
When I was in college (not that long ago), the dominate “progressive” rubric was all about the “social construction” of everything. Gender, race, sexuality, national identify, etc. One of the things that I have struggled with is how transgender issues seems to reject (to me) the idea of a social construction of gender or gender-norms. Which probably explains some of the feminist backlash. The inherent nature and immutability of a transwoman’s “womanhood” seems in tension with everything I was supposed to be taught about gender.
And this is why we have an issue is it not?
I am being very specific in using “biologically male” to refer to someone with a full set of phenotypical male traits. Does that person come under the banner of “male” in your scenario above or could they also be a “transgirl”?
By my definition of male your two statements cannot be logically held at the same time (seeing as a biological male can also be a transgirl) So you must be meaning something else by either transgirl or male. An agreement of definition is needed.