Skipped over much of the thread after running a “find” function to see if anyone defined “cisgender” of any of the other “cis-” terms. I think those terms still should be defined on first reference in all but narrow scientific and/or social contexts.
Yes, I guess in my mind it goes down something like the following.
Sex - Breaks down into Male (XY) and Female (XX) with rare exceptions; this is a biological construct
Gender - Breaks down into Man/Boy and Woman/Girl with rare exceptions; this is a biological and social construct
Gender Role - Breaks down into Masculine and Feminine with some not so rare exceptions; this is a social construct
For transgenders we are generally talking about Sex and Gender not aligning with gender roles potentially not even entering into the discussion. We also can potentially, but not necessarily, be talking about some of the exceptions to sex or gender beyond the normal bifurcated breakdown for each.
Well, I guess I at least see her point. If I’m understanding that a part of this subset of feminism believes that there is no biological difference in gender (not sex) then it is completely opposed to the entire transgender idea that there are people who have a misfit between their sex and gender. Understand that’s not what I believe, but I think that’s what they are essentially saying they have spent decades fighting for: no biological difference in genders.
Not no biological difference - its pretty obvious that people born female have female parts, and pretty darn obvious what an XY chromosome pair looks like. No one argues that.
What some people argue is that the emotional, intellectual “brain” part of being female is socialization. I don’t buy that (all the feminists I have who have had a male and female child - including myself - laugh at that), but I don’t reject the idea that a lot of socialization does go into your gender identity.
Re-read what I wrote. My understanding is they believe there are no biological differences in gender. They of course would agree that there are biological differences in sex.
For me, the core value that makes me want to identify as a feminist is the belief that we ought to move toward a society in which people tend to have the ability to live their lives the way they want to live them. Feminism spends a fair amount of time breaking down limitations and expectations on people based on their sex, and that’s good. Antiracism does the same thing, as do other egalitarian movements.
In this case, I don’t think any woman has to accept any other woman as a friend or as part of her sisterhood. Plenty of women of color roll their eyes at mainstream white feminism–bell hooks has gone so far as to call it “white supremacy feminism”–because the narrative of these mainstream white feminists is exclusive of their own experience. That’s fine. It’s also appropriate for a ciswoman to say, “your understanding of femininity is very different from mine, based on our different life experiences” to a transwoman, as long as she’s not claiming the transwoman is therefore not a woman. That claim would be no more appropriate than if bell hooks claimed that Sheryl Sandburg wasn’t a woman.
But we should try to make a world where people can live the lives they want to lead. Part of that means accepting people as the gender they consider themselves to be. There’s virtually no cost to this acceptance, and a great societal benefit to it, inasmuch as it–wait for it–lets people live the lives they want to lead.
Must we accept paramoid or schizophrenic people the way they are or ar we bigots? After all, they were born that way. And just because you say someone is a bigot doesnt mean that they are. Just because a million people say someone is a bigot doesnt mean they are. You are wrong to demonize others. You dont have to agree with em but namecalling and marginalization puts you in the same group as some pretty evil people.
I agree that we should accept trans people the way they want to live. i dont agree with insulting others or forcing this view down others throats.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. You’re free to marginalize transfolk by comparing them to the mentally insane, but OOOH THE HORROR if someone calls you bigoted, is that right? We gotta make sure we’re only marginalizing the right people here, and you must not be the right person to marginalize!
Marginalizing transfolk=hunky dory.
Marginalizing folks who spout bigoted nonsense=demonizing people, like Hitler did!
C’mon. That’s some lame-ass bullshit there.
Its your opinion that its bigoted nonsense although I agree with you. You arent to shy about expressing your own bigotry about people born with schizophrenia or paranoia. Like transgendered folks, they were born with brains that work differently than most other people. They arent ‘mentally insane’ whatever that means.
And name-calling is childish and counterproductive. All Big T is doing is trying to force his opinion down peoples throats. No one has a monopoly on the truth no matter how many agree with them.,
And I’d agree with all of this. Caitlyn Jenner is not the kind of woman I want a damn thing to do with - not because she is transgendered, but because she chose to present herself as a bimbo on the cover of Vanity Fair. I feel the same about Marissa Mayer. Which is an issue with the hyper feminized transgendered community - the part that always commits to a skirt and heels. Women may not be rejecting you for your transgendered status - a lot of us just had our fill of that sort of girl in high school and we are so over that. That doesn’t mean we don’t think you are a woman, we just don’t like that type of woman.
If you don’t know what “mentally insane” means–and you clearly don’t–then you’re not able to say whether folks with paranoia or schizophrenia are “mentally insane.”
I appreciate this example, though. I’ve said many times that if folks called me a bigot, I’d take what they said as an assertion, not as a terrible insult to report. Either I’m bigoted about folks with paranoia and schizophrenia, or I’m not.
Here is a legal definition of “insanity”
Here is a medical definition of schizophrenia:
Here is a medical definition of paranoia:
Clearly “paranoia” and “schizophrenia” involve persons who cannot distinguish fantasy from reality. (If you don’t see this look up “delusions.”)
There is no bigotry involved in my calling those who suffer from these conditions “insane.”
Your business about “monopoly on the truth” or whatever is just Captain-Obvious level gibberish.
There is no medical or biological meaning to the term mentally insane or insane. Its a tern used by people trying to explain complex phenomena with simple language. In the legal system its ageneral term that is used as a mitigating factor against a persons actions.
Schizophrenia, paranoia, transgenderedness and other conditions are due to brain abnormalities. That is why all these conditions are rarely seen in the general population. There is no rightness or wrongness to having differences.
Your outrage is stopping you from seeing the shades of gray in this issue.
“Insane” is still a legal term. You’re right that it’s not a medical term at this point. The word “psychotic” is a medical term, and in my earlier criticism of you, if it’s important to you, substitute the word “psychotic,” so it would read:
Better?
Yes, they are all unusual brain conditions. However, only two of them involve delusions and an inability to distinguish fantasy from reality. It’s a bogus fucking comparison you made, and all your nonsense about shades of gray is a weak-ass attempt to hide that bogusness.
Please provide evidence that psychosis is a real medical condition.
And you know that transgendered people feel the way they do because of factors that exist outside of the brain just how?
Before we get into this, will you accept case studies as evidence, or will you claim people are just making up stories about the nasty imaginary psychotic people?
Is there a biological cause of what we call psychosis or is it something we observe as a behavior? I acknowledge that there are such people but Im not sure that the psychotic label is the correct way to label them.
Psychosis is defined to be a symptom. Anyone who becomes detached from reality in certain ways, from whatever cause, is psychotic. It can be caused by drugs, such as amphetamines, or it can be caused by schizophrenia.
We don’t know everything about what causes schizophrenia. However, we observe it runs in families, and that there are small brain structure abnormalities associated with schizophrenia. Here’s more information.
Of course you are free to associate with whoever you want, and be friends with whoever you want, and make whatever restrictions for your book club and whatever else you want. And I don’t think being a woman or being a feminist means giving 100% support in all things to women; you can be a feminist and not want to vote for Hillary Clinton (or Elizabeth Warren or Carly Fiorina or Sarah Palin or whoever else).
But I am a little bothered by rejecting someone by how they are dressed, and deeming it too feminine. I think that part of feminism is that you don’t have to confirm to feminine beauty standards if you don’t want to, but I don’t want the pendulum to swing too far the other way and all feminine things to be rejected and seen as terrible, lesser things. I’d rather not be judged by my lack of fashion, or for assumptions to be made about me since I’m not stereotypically feminine in many ways, and I try not to judge other women who hugely follow fashion or wear a lot of makeup or otherwise conform to feminine standards more than I do.
Thank you for that.
No. If you genuinely doubt this, you’re perfectly capable of googling it yourself. I’ve established that what I said was not bigoted, and that what you said was a fucked up comparison, so I’m pretty much done.