Yes, she stated she wanted to continue to use the name “Steven” and the masculine pronoun until she transitioned. (As you say, at that time she was presenting male.) I imagine she’s now asked to go by Susan, and consequently feminine pronouns.
I agree that roles, behaviors, and activities are all subject to modification by an individual. “Attributes,” may not be, depending on the particular attribute in question. And it’s here that that part of the problem lies. If “a given society” considers the attribute of possessing a penis as the sole indicator of having a male gender, we’re down to considering only post-operative individuals male. And if “a given society” considers possessing a penis at birth the sole indicator of having a male gender, then we’re stuck.
Also, there are those that don’t consider a cite from an international organization particularly convincing. I’d be very interested in finding a USA-specific cite.
Bricker, “sex” meaning biology and “gender” meaning sociology is…just part of how they’re defined, I don’t understand what you’re debating. I’ll happily provide some cites, but I’m not sure what you’re looking for.
Not really debating, in that I have no problem with the definition you propose. I’m looking to gain ammunition for an off-board discussion I am having with some folks that do not see this; they contend that gender has a common and easily understood definition synonmous with sex.
Not by most anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, etc.
From my psychology text book Hockenbury and Hockenbury 4th edition published 2006:
sex - biologically determined physical characteristics
gender - the cultural, social, and psychological meanings that are associated with maleness and femaleness
gender identity - a person’s psychological sense of self as male or female
From my: 2006 An Introduction to Women’s Studies text by Grewal and Kaplan
sex - the categories of male and female and the biological characteristics and properties of bodies placed in these catagories
gender - the assignment of masculine and feminine characteristics to bodies in cultural contexts
I recently lent most of my anthropology texts on this subject to a professor of mine but any good anthropology text will discuss people who have a different gender than sex.
Sorry, can’t help you. As I noted above, it is perfectly logical to argue that “gender as a construct independent of biological sex is indeed entirely a matter of self-identity”.
However, your interlocutors apparently have already decided to define “gender” as synonymous with biological sex, rather than independent of it. If they don’t accept that sex and gender are different concepts, then obviously there’s no way to persuade them that gender is not biologically determined.
Does social continuity count for nothing these days? I mean, sure I don’t care if someone is transgendered, I’ve known many transgendered people in my time, and have hung out with Transvestites regularly, but if it seriously upsets the status quo, something should be done. I don’t understand why every time someone makes a decision to totally fly in the face of convention and conventional society is just supposed to accept it. Why is this man’s choice more important than the normative desires of his community?
The fuck?
Why should we respect a decision to dramatically go against the status quo as being something valid that should be defended? Why shouldn’t this man accept that he is embarking upon a journey that violates convention and that if he is choosing to abandon his old identity that he shouldn’t expect to be able to maintain the perks that were accumulated within that prior identity.
I am all for rugged individualism. What I am not for is coddled individualism.
I’m not so sure. I believe if I can point to a sociological or other peer-reviewed sort of document that either argues for or definitively pronounces the difference, the onus would be on them to counter me.
I started to write out a diatribe, but I think I’ll merely content myself with the knowledge that you’re completely batshit crazy, mswas.
I am batshit crazy for thinking that individuals have the right not to accept the decisions of transgendered individuals?
To add to your batshit crazy theory, I did a lot of acid. For a long time I thought that society should merely accept my behavior. However, as I progressed I recognized that the messing with my psyche that I did had social repercussions, and I now understand why it’s not simply accepted amongst society as a whole. I modified my psyche in a way that was out of the bounds of standard society. I have since learned to adapt and I can fake sane as well as anyone by simply keeping my mouth shut on certain topics in certain social settings.
This man will learn the same lesson, unless he runs across someone like me who can spot a Trannie at 300 yards. 
The mere fact that you refuse to refer to her as a woman pretty much says it all. You may, possibly, in some distant and remote way, be right that nobody else should be forced to deal with her decision, but respecting her decision is the least anyone can do.
So what was that you were saying about keeping your mouth shut?
Because we’re intelligent, compassionate adults.
What’s your excuse?
What makes you believe that the status quo is always, inviolably, 100% correct? Can you think of any instances in history, recent or remote, where perhaps the status quo was not correct?
Because we believe that individuals are entitled to make their own decisions about their sex lives and their sexual identities.
If you don’t agree with this, then by all means feel free to express your disapproval socially by refusing to interact with transsexuals in your personal life. But trying to punish them professionally by taking their jobs away, when their job performance has been exemplary and they haven’t broken any rules, is quite another thing.
This situation is not about “perks”: this is about a competent worker doing a job where job performance is completely unrelated to gender identity.
If defenders of outmoded social conventions (because really, dear, the concept of tranny is just not that shocking anymore) wish to express their social disapproval of a transsexual’s publicly changing gender identity, let them do so in their personal social interactions. Attempting to sabotage the transsexual’s job, on the other hand, for no valid job-related reason but simply because you’re just not comfortable with tranny, is blatantly unfair.
What’s with your serial fetishization of the “status quo,” anyway? This isn’t the first thread in which you seem to suggest that the mere fact that things “are the way they are” carries some kind of mystical significance that commands universal reverence.
On preview, what Shibboleth said.
It was contextual. This is an appropriate venue to flap my gums. ;p
Vinyl Turnip I see society as a series of power relationships, and don’t look at these sorts of identity politics as a moral issue.
Then why the hell are you asking all these moral questions and making all these moral statements about how we ought to deal with them?
If it’s just about power relationships with no moral implications, then what’s all this cackle about “rights” and “respect” and “validity”? Why not just say “The transgendered can expect social acceptance of changing sexual identity only when/if they are powerful enough to force society to accept them”, and leave it at that? Why waste our time with arguments about hypothetical moral “shoulds” that you apparently don’t even believe in?