Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2019 - 11:46am PT
|
If you felt like a woman, that would be your reality. Some people feel like both. Some feel like neither. Why does that matter to you?
A person's felt-reality doesn't matter to me. If you'll look upthread, you'll see that I explicitly said that "I don't give a CRAP" about any of that. Do what you feel and enjoy your life. I literally don't care.
What I do care about is the integrity of language and the movement to FORCE people to speak in ways that violate basic reference.
The classic example that has emerged over the most recent 50 posts or so is that I am being called "delusional" for saying that trans people are "delusional." Apparently people here feel that "delusional" can mean whatever they want it to mean.
Okay, fine, but then we still need some other word to REFER to a persistent and detailed mental state in which the person in question holds a defining set of beliefs that do not cohere with objective reality.
I have been repeatedly called "delusional" on this site for denying that evolutionary theory is an adequate account of the origin of species. Nobody calling me "delusional" for that thinks that they are being "offensive." They are just, they think, stating a FACT that "Jensen's beliefs about evolution do not cohere with established science."
But when I say that a trans person's persistent, subjective beliefs do not cohere with biological FACT, so I use "delusional" in that same sense, well, then I'm a big, bad meanie. And the personal attacks in the last few pages of posts here have been pretty epic!
Good thing that my emotional state doesn't hang on the opinions of the meanie posters here! :-)
If you're offended by my use of "delusional," then please tell me what other term you'd prefer to use to describe a person whose persistent, subjective beliefs do not cohere with the facts.
Same question with the claim that I'm being "fascist." It's an easy word to bandy about when you don't like what your "opponent" says. But I am not being fascist in the slightest. As I've posted repeatedly upthread, I make every effort to act toward people with whom I don't agree with calmness, kindness, and tolerance. I sincerely believe that we human beings are a mass of mistakes and misconceptions. And that is why I also believe that the integrity of language is important, because that is the basis of our capacity to correct ourselves and each other... that is if truth matters to us.
I believe that trans people should enjoy every human right, and they should be treated with the same measure of kindness and respect as any other human being. How is that "fascist"?
What you are CALLING "fascist" is that I refuse to contribute to "fixing up" language itself to accommodate delusion. To the extent that we can identify facts-of-the-matter, to that extent we should carefully guard linguistic reference and keep verbiage referentially anchored to the facts-of-the-matter.
CALLING a male "she" is literally a referential break. Same with calling a female "he." And gender is biologically determined. When "feeling" and "perception" come apart from the facts, that IS delusion. And then embodying that delusion in language itself is to make language itself fail to refer. And then all bets are off.
So, the ONLY part of the trans situation that matters to me are the linguistic components, and there the "fascists" are those that would FORCE others to countenance what they themselves know to be a lie.
It is not a "mistake" to say, "I feel female, even though I am biologically... uh, can't SAY it! I'm a WOMAN! I'm a WOMAN!" NO! If you are biologically a woman, well, that's that. And "woman" picks out biological women in the world. THAT is linguistic integrity.
I have and will continue to treat trans people with respect and dignity. But I will not participate in making language itself fit the delusion that grips them.
|
|
7SacredPools
Trad climber
Ontario, Canada
|
|
That Nazi/Democrat spoof is indeed funny.
BTW What happened to MB? He's missing out on the party.
Ooops!
|
|
7SacredPools
Trad climber
Ontario, Canada
|
|
Intersex humans exist and that is why there is a sex continuum.
My point is that someone's gender doesn't always align with their assigned "sex" and it's not up to us to decide for them.
|
|
fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
|
|
...Finally. Boobs don't hurt people....
I've never understood the puritan fear of boobies. Seems really strange. You can have mass murder and beheadings on tee-vee but no boobies.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2019 - 12:55pm PT
|
Intersex humans exist and that is why there is a sex continuum.
My point is that someone's gender doesn't always align with their assigned "sex" and it's not up to us to decide for them.
As I said upthread, the "trans debate" is not about intersex people, nor the debate about how "common" it is. As I said, despite the fact that there ARE cases in which subjective "identification" is ALL we've got due to biological ambiguity, the vast majority of human beings and effectively all of the people with an ax to grind in the "trans debate" are not gender ambiguous.
The "trans debate" concerns people who ARE unambiguously male or female but who "identify" as the OTHER gender (or no gender at all).
And it IS both possible and most common, biologically, to differentiate between male and female using chromosomes. That is the primary biological anchor of gender, not morphology.
https://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html
The so-called "gender fluidity" expresses the idea that "gender" is a made-up notion, a purely social construct, that has no EFFECTIVE anchor in biological reality. But the fact that there are edge-cases (that CAN be identified AS edge-cases, departures from the NORM) does not change the fact that gender is almost entirely binary. And, again, nobody is debating that "identity" is ALL we've got to work with in gender-ambiguous cases.
THE issue concerns the vast majority of cases that are NOT gender-ambiguous, where the biological facts are clear, and where it is not mere "social construct" to SPEAK in binary terms. Is it MERE "social construct" that entire languages revolve around binary-gendered terms? No, such things are recognition that the "constructs" emerged BECAUSE of their anchor in biological facts.
There are many ambiguous terms, like "bald." But that does not mean that a man with NO hair on his head is "not bald" just because he doesn't "identify as bald." And the "spectrum" of ambiguity regarding gender is vastly smaller than the spectrum of ambiguity regarding baldness.
Say that a bald person tells me, "I identify as a person with hair down to my waist, so from now on, when I ask you question about, for example, whether you like my hair in two braids or one, I expect you to respond in terms of my braid(s)." Am I now a hater or meanie to decline to participate in this delusion? And if this bald person makes this a pressing topic in the office, such that other workers are uncomfortable with the pressure of participating in this delusion, is there not legitimate grounds for an intervention and, perhaps, ultimately firing the delusional person?
Where this analogy breaks down is that gender is not like baldness in being "apparent" to the eye. When somebody I meet for the first time seems like a woman and identifies as a woman, far be it from me to demand to lift her skirt and double-check! Far be it from me to demand a genetic test! So, we depend heavily upon State-issued identification, and gender does have important legal implications!
In the workplace, if a driver's license says that a person is male, well, then, that's the end of the discussion as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to treat that person as a legal male.
So, it seems that what you are advocating is something more fundamental than the traditional "trans debate," which is that State-issued IDs should include other options besides just "male" and "female."
I could FULLY get behind such a move! That sort of thing would disambiguate the terms, since there are legal implications to them! However, that would also mean that the State WOULD get into the business of "lifting the skirts" in the sense of genetic tests. Again, if gender LEGALLY matters, then it needs to be LEGALLY determined. And then it is fixed, because a person's chromosomes don't change in this respect.
If what you want, instead, is a system by which a person just shows up at the DMV wearing a dress and saying, "Mark me down as female," and that makes it LEGALLY so, well, a lot of us are going to resist such a system.
I am VERY sympathetic to the idea that some small percentage of people are "mis-assigned" at birth, because some doc just did a quick morphological once-over. But as what gender IS becomes more and more important, it becomes more and more important for that early "assignment" to be biologically correct and reflected in the records associated with the person for the rest of their life!
However, all that said, the idea that gender is just this big, amorphous spectrum is not biologically correct. We need to be much more careful in those initial "assignments" to ensure that gender is correctly identified for legal purposes; and we need to ensure that in the few cases of biological ambiguity, the person is allowed to "self assign" (or refuse to "assign") subjectively. But let's not take the edge-cases to make national policy regarding the VAST majority of unambiguous cases.
If there were no legal or linguistic implications, I wouldn't care WHAT people "call themselves." But where there ARE clear anchors in FACT (the vast majority of cases), well, then gender-terms MEAN something fixed and REFER to actual facts. How to handle THOSE cases is the basis of the debate, and in THOSE (the vast majority of) cases, I advocate that biological facts establish the legal and linguistic facts.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2019 - 01:15pm PT
|
What kind of bee produces milk instead of honey?
A boobee.
Heard that one from a woman in the lift line at Copper last week.
|
|
d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
|
|
Do tell madbolter1, have you any experience
with a transgendered person or people?
Why are you so enamored by the
subject?
|
|
Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
|
|
We need to be much more careful in those initial "assignments" to ensure that gender is correctly identified for legal purposes; and we need to ensure that in the few cases of biological ambiguity, the person is allowed to "self assign" (or refuse to "assign") subjectively. We don't need to do anything of the sort. If someone's personal behavior is within the parameters of the law and Bill of Rights then none of that argument means a thing other than you employ phony science to hide your Biblical prejudices.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2019 - 02:05pm PT
|
none of that argument means a thing other than you employ phony science to hide your Biblical prejudices.
"Phony science"? Are you serious?
You making that claim reveals only your own rabid anti-Christianity. In point of fact, I am at best marginally a "Christian," as I don't believe like anybody I know that calls themselves "Christian" on many of the core points of "Christianity."
Meanwhile, my posts have been anything BUT "Christian" in content or motivation. My primary motivation is that there are legal implications to this discussion that most of you don't seem to recognize. You can be forgiven for that, not being by and large employers. But there are a HOST of legal ramifications in an office environment.
* FMLA provides for a suite of employee rights, many/most of which are grounded in gender (treated as an objective fact).
* Various State laws extend FMLA to provide even more gender-specific employee rights and employer responsibilities.
These sorts of laws are typically much more pressing in office environments than out doing, say, construction work that is almost entirely dominated by male practitioners.
Here are some examples of biological delusions that have legal/employment implications....
[Click to View YouTube Video]
She says that her employer should provide her a snuggly bed where she can "catnap" through most of the day. Should the employer be required to comply with this delusion just because she "identifies" as such?
Oh, you say, but HERS is an obvious delusion that is species-based rather than gender-based.
You dirty, stinking, hate-filled speciesist! If anything, YOU should be all over the idea that "species" is just a grand, amorphous, step-less continuum. How DARE you claim that this person is NOT a cat? And don't you DARE appeal to objective biological facts, because you've taken those off the table!
Or, let's say that a male employee (as specified on his Driver's license and all other work-related documents) comes to me one day and requests three months off in accordance with FMLA maternity leave statutes.
I respond, "But you're not pregnant. You're not even a woman who COULD get pregnant."
HE responds, "But I identify as a woman, and I woke up this morning puking, which I identify as morning sickness."
I respond, "Have you seen a doctor about this condition?"
HE responds, "I don't need a doctor to mis-assign me! I am transitioning, damn it, and I feel pregnant."
How far should this charade go? Am I now required by law to hold this GUY's job for HIM for three months while HE is on "maternity leave"?
And it goes on and on. MY preference would be that the government, particular the federal government, would get ENTIRELY out of the business of sexuality, marriage, etc. It cannot get these matters right, and its arbitrariness has legal implications that turn into flat-out nuttiness!
But it's the LEFT that wanted all of these legal protections in place. You've got them! And you all seem to be committed to income tax, with its mass of marriage-based deductions. And now these government interventions have increasingly crazy implications when you turn gender itself into pure ambiguity when it is NOT!
This has nothing to do with "morality" or "religiosity." My concerns are those of linguistic reference and legal implications.
|
|
d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
|
|
Keep digging that hole mb1.
It's good that you expose
who you truly are.
Thanks for that.
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
Brilliant video, Edward. ROFL
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
There are female who are born in a male body ( bad Karma).
There are male who are born in a female body (bad Karma).
This IS the cause to transgender.
When people are too materially fixed problems arise like in this thread .....
|
|
Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
|
|
Relax and let the courts hash it.
You've claimed on many occasions that your a moderate with no party or religious identification- your posts and the angry, white guy possy who rally to your cause says different.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
let the courts hash it
The courts are st00pid too .....
|
|
John Duffield
Mountain climber
New York
|
|
Meanwhile this critter identifies as a h00man and attempted to take the subway in nyc. Didn't pay the fare and got busted.
|
|
d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
|
|
Moose wise.😑
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2019 - 04:04pm PT
|
You've claimed on many occasions that your a moderate with no party or religious identification- your posts and the angry, white guy possy who rally to your cause says different.
Opinions vary. I can only speak to my own perspectives and motivations. You interpret my posts through your own lens.
And "Let the courts hash it out" is amazingly short-sighted. We the people hash this out in at least the court of public opinion, laws follow, and MOST (like with very rare exception) laws never get debated in court. Most of the time, laws get represented in statutes like FMLA, and suddenly employers find themselves in a morass that NOBODY making the law thought through. Then, eventually, after vast expense and risk of being flat-out closed down, a test-case might make it high enough in the courts to finally get a hearing.
But then, finger-to-wind and politically appointed justices decide. And most such decisions are an oblique "will of the people" as hashed out in the court of public opinion.
So, the court of public opinion does matter in a wide range of ways, and getting clear on the implications of these linguistic terms matters.
At this point, however, I feel like nothing new is happening in this discussion. The "sides" are fixed, as are the opinions, and no new ideas are being shared anymore. If that changes, perhaps I'll respond.
But, for the moment, it seems that I've made my position as clear as I can, and I've heard "the other side" from a wide range of people. This thread proved to be all I could have hoped and more! 'Nuff said.
|
|
capseeboy
Social climber
portland, oregon
|
|
Hey Moose, that's interesting stuff.
This may be moronic but I have wondered why we evolved into two sexes. Seems like it would have been a lot simpler if we were same sex with reproductive capacity.
Like in Enemy Mine.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
|
|
At the very least, mb1, you have hope.
Where your coming from and why you
choose to make this a point of
contention is still questionable.
Best to you.
|
|
HermitMaster
Social climber
my abode
|
|
There is no such thing as a Court of Public Opinion.
LOL!!!
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!