Transgender rights discussion

Mike Smalling said:
I don't really see how incels are relevant here, and I'm not saying there shouldn't be a single word for it either. But right now it just seems to me, that you can use the word "woman" if you see someone you think is a woman, because they present that way. If you need to be particular or precise, for whatever reason, you can use "adult female" or "cis woman". I don't see what's wrong with that.
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Why are you acting like it's weird to be precise or this is some new demand that I am making?

I am quite sure most people literally mean the precise biological definition when they use words like man, women, boys and girls.

I know people make comments like "he's a real man" or stuff like that but let's not pretend that that is the conventional established reason for using the word 'man'.
 
VorZakone said:
"I have 2 children."
"Boys or girls?"
"Just children".
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The definition of child is a human being between infancy and puberty.

Since they don't have those key biological characteristics of males or females (i.e. gametes) to distinguish them, we use gender based terms to classify children based on their masculine or feminine characteristics.
 
VorZakone said:
Typically, people use the words boys, girls, men and women because it's pretty established language. And we know what they usually mean. A girl is a female child. A man is an adult male.

Your argument is basically that those terms are linguistically (?) wrong. Because a man isn't supposed to be defined as an "adult male". The word 'man' does not fit that specific definition. So we've all been using the wrong term to refer to an adult male.

That's your position, no?
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I think Dwayne’s just got it wrong. Woman/female, man/male, they’re interchangeable. The only difference is that male/female applies to all ages. Man/woman implies adults only. Boy/girl implies male/female children. Why does it need to be any more complicated than that?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think Dwayne’s just got it wrong. Woman/female, man/male, they’re interchangeable. The only difference is that male/female applies to all ages. Man/woman implies adults only. Boy/girl implies male/female children. Why does it need to be any more complicated than that?
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Oh I agree they're largely interchangeable @VorZakone just seems to have an unhealthy focus on reproductive organs so I'm using male/female in a scientific sense and woman, man, boy, girl in a gender based sense (i.e. based on masculine or feminine characteristics). These days it's a reasonable distinction because someone who appears to be a man may not be biologically male, for instance.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
Oh I agree they're largely interchangeable @VorZakone just seems to have an unhealthy focus on genitalia so I'm using male/female in a scientific sense and woman, man, boy, girl in a gender based sense (i.e. based on masculine or feminine characteristics). These days it's a reasonable distinction because someone who appears to be a man may not be biologically male, for instance.
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I think it’s easiest just to go man/woman, boy/girl and add cis/trans if needed. Male/female is just an alternative to boy/girl/man/woman that doesn’t bring age into it (or the need to be human!)
 
VorZakone said:
Why are you acting like it's weird to be precise or this is some new demand that I am making?

I am quite sure most people literally mean the precise biological definition when they use words like man, women, boys and girls.

I know people make comments like "he's a real man" or stuff like that but let's not pretend that that is the conventional established reason for using the word 'man'.
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I didn't write that it's weird to be precise, or that you are making any demands. I honestly don't know what you mean by that.

Yeah, I agree that most people use "woman" to cover both the gender and the sex aspect, because that is how things have been done for the vast the majority of peoples lives. And I also think that by and large, people are not really that aware of or sensitive to transgender people. The traditional usage of woman also remains accurate in most cases, since trans people account for a small share of the population.

But if you believe that a trans woman is a woman, then the word no longer accurately translates to "adult female". In cases where you need to make sure that you describe the sex correctly, then "adult female" would be the way to go instead of "woman". Unless we find a new single word as shorthand for that, but I'd argue we don't need one.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
Oh I agree they're largely interchangeable @VorZakone just seems to have an unhealthy focus on reproductive organs so I'm using male/female in a scientific sense and woman, man, boy, girl in a gender based sense (i.e. based on masculine or feminine characteristics). These days it's a reasonable distinction because someone who appears to be a man may not be biologically male, for instance.
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How would you define the word "woman"? If you could change the dictionary definition, what would you write?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think it’s easiest just to go man/woman, boy/girl and add cis/trans if needed. Male/female is just an alternative to boy/girl/man/woman that doesn’t bring age into it (or the need to be human!)
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True, I was trying hard to avoid bringing cannibals plants into the discussion!

I do like the focus on reproductive characteristics for definitions of male and female, though. For the J.K. Rowling types who are stuck on biology, like.
 
@VorZakone
Define:
1. species
2. covalent and ionic bonds
3. planet

These are the most basic concepts of biology, chemistry, and astronomy. Surely there must be a clear, unambiguous definition that can be applied universally for these basic things!
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think it’s easiest just to go man/woman, boy/girl and add cis/trans if needed.
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From a purely language-based perspective (it was my degree and I once did an entire essay on the differences between the words "aim" and "goal") the 'problem', if we're rejecting a focus on biology, that "woman" (and "man") now has no definition.

Currently, "woman" is defined as something like "adult female human being" and "man" means "adult male human being". We don't need to look at "adult", "human" or "being" for this purpose, but a number of dictionaries will then have the differentiating definition of "female" and "male" with a focus on biological characteristics. If we reject the biology for the definition, then we need something else, as the other relevant definitions of "female" and "male" just make it circular (something like "woman or girl"/"man or boy").

I've always had a descriptivist view of language so don't really care how or why people use words as they use them, but if "woman" encompasses both cis- and trans- women (fair enough) then the prefixes should be redundant. It's for someone far cleverer than me to sort out, but this is where the crux of the 'debate' lies. It's not one I'm particularly interested in because in the majority of cases we know what people mean from the context in which they say it ("literally" now including the definition for "figuratively" a prime example).

Dr. Dwayne said:
I would say a human being with feminine appearance and characteristics.
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Is this not where the issue lies? Both "feminine appearance and characteristics" are extremely subjective (the latter in particular), and will vary from culture to culture, country to country, even generation to generation. There is also the fact that there will be plenty of examples of women who, by whatever standards you use to define those two things, match neither, but are women nonetheless.
 
berbatrick said:
@VorZakone
Define:
1. species
2. covalent and ionic bonds
3. planet

These are the most basic concepts of biology, chemistry, and astronomy. Surely there must be a clear, unambiguous definition that can be applied universally for these basic things!
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Well, what does the dictionary say? This is what Cambridge Dictionary says on planet. ;)

an extremely large, round mass of rock and metal, such as Earth, or of gas, such as Jupiter, that moves in a circular path around the sun or another star
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For the record, my argument isn't "just blindly follow the dictionary". And I'm sure there are words out there with multiple definitions. The word "intelligence" also refers to collected information usually obtained through digital or physical espionage. My pet peeve is actually that I would like to have a different word for that.
 
Alex99 said:
Is this not where the issue lies? Both "feminine appearance and characteristics" are extremely subjective (the latter in particular), and will vary from culture to culture, country to country, even generation to generation. There is also the fact that there will be plenty of examples of women who, by whatever standards you use to define those two things, match neither, but are women nonetheless.
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Yeah we'll always have the Marjorie Taylor Greene's to contend with but language evolves and a less sexually overt definition of man and woman that considers characteristics seems like a reasonable compromise, at least for this issue.

Save male and female for the biological reference (i.e. what's under the hood) and use man and woman for what it says (or appears to say) on the tin.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
Yeah we'll always have the Marjorie Taylor Greene's to contend with but language evolves and a less sexually overt definition of man and woman that considers characteristics seems like a reasonable compromise

Save male and female for the biological reference (i.e. under the hood) and use man and woman for what it says (or appears to say) on the tin.
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It seems probable that we're simply at a point where the dictionary definitions have not yet caught up with modern usage. It's a common misconception that dictionaries are there to dictate language use, and if it's not in the dictionary, it's somehow wrong. The reality is that they record it and move with the times. It's the reason why certain definitions have an "archaic" tag next to them, and why others will have a "colloquial" tag next to them.

As I said to Pogue, we've seen "literally" adopt the definition for "figuratively" in recent years because of people like Jamie Redknapp using it to mean things that are not actually literal. I think, as we've demonstrated in this thread, there's a difficulty in avoiding circular or exclusive definitions when lay-people like us try and come up with it ourselves.
 
Alex99 said:
It seems probable that we're simply at a point where the dictionary definitions have not yet caught up with modern usage. It's a common misconception that dictionaries are there to dictate language use, and if it's not in the dictionary, it's somehow wrong. The reality is that they record it and move with the times. It's the reason why certain definitions have an "archaic" tag next to them, and why others will have a "colloquial" tag next to them.

As I said to Pogue, we've seen "literally" adopt the definition for "figuratively" in recent years because of people like Jamie Redknapp using it to mean things that are not actually literal. I think, as we've demonstrated in this thread, there's a difficulty in avoiding circular or exclusive definitions when lay-people like us try and come up with it ourselves.
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Agreed, this is definitely one of those times.
 
VorZakone said:
Well, what does the dictionary say? This is what Cambridge Dictionary says on planet. ;)



For the record, my argument isn't "just blindly follow the dictionary". And I'm sure there are words out there with multiple definitions. The word "intelligence" also refers to collected information usually obtained through digital or physical espionage. My pet peeve is actually that I would like to have a different word for that.
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That definition includes Pluto and doesn't really rule out asteroids. According to NASA, the definition has changed over time and is still in debate.

The definition of species has changed over time. The textbook definition taught to students is meaningless for the overwhelming majority of species on earth which reproduce asexually, as well as for some sexual species. Defining "species" to include them is probably impossible.

There are clear examples of covalent and ionic bonds taught in chemistry high school that completely break apart once you get enough polarity in a "covalent" compound.

Is it so difficult to imagine that this is also the case for a word like woman? That definitions may be context-dependent and change with time?
 
berbatrick said:
That definition includes Pluto and doesn't really rule out asteroids. According to NASA, the definition has changed over time and is still in debate.

The definition of species has changed over time. The textbook definition taught to students is meaningless for the overwhelming majority of species on earth which reproduce asexually, as well as for some sexual species. Defining "species" to include them is probably impossible.

There are clear examples of covalent and ionic bonds taught in chemistry high school that completely break apart once you get enough polarity in a "covalent" compound.

Is it so difficult to imagine that this is also the case for a word like woman? That definitions may be context-dependent and change with time?
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The bolded: as said by @Alex99 , it seems there currently is no definition of it. @Dr. Dwayne gave his version but that one is highly subjective.
 
VorZakone said:
The bolded: as said by @Alex99 , it seems there currently is no definition of it. @Dr. Dwayne gave his version but that one is highly subjective.
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I think with many concepts like this (whether it is "species" or it is "woman"), there are going to be many definitions which will be useful in their own specific contexts. I'm not sure time will solve this either - in the case of species, as we learn more, they get even harder to define.

I just remembered, when Matt Walsh and J K Rowling were going around saying "what is a woman", someone asked her to define a chair or table or something, and she produced a definition that could include horses. Something like that at any rate. Chairs and tables should be much simpler to define than concepts like gender or species, yet it couldn't be done.

Despite not having perfect clarity on what a chair is, everybody including J K and the person asking her, could look at a chair and a horse and know what each one is.
 
Thought this was an interesting comment on Reddit.

I get frustrated by trans discourse in the same way. My need to be female is much stronger than my need to be a woman. My brain knows that it's supposed to have female parts, and I honestly don't think there's anything socially constructed about it. Why else was I shoving my genitals back into my body and wishing they'd stay that way when I was 4? I hardly knew what gender was at that point, but I knew I wasn't supposed to have this weird thing dangling out of my body.

On the other hand, many trans people do experience their gender and dysphoria as a social thing. That's totally valid too. It's just not my experience.

In my opinion, the near total focus on gender over "the sex our brains need their bodies to be" (psychological sex) has done a massive disservice to a large chunk of the trans community. Both gender and psychological sex mismatches are part of the trans experience, and we need to be able to talk about both.
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Psychological sex is a different level of complexity versus biological sex. I doubt we're anywhere near to understanding that.
 
berbatrick said:
I think with many concepts like this (whether it is "species" or it is "woman"), there are going to be many definitions which will be useful in their own specific contexts. I'm not sure time will solve this either - in the case of species, as we learn more, they get even harder to define.

I just remembered, when Matt Walsh and J K Rowling were going around saying "what is a woman", someone asked her to define a chair or table or something, and she produced a definition that could include horses. Something like that at any rate. Chairs and tables should be much simpler to define than concepts like gender or species, yet it couldn't be done.

Despite not having perfect clarity on what a chair is, everybody including J K and the person asking her, could look at a chair and a horse and know what each one is.
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Should "pregnant women" be replaced by "pregnant people" in your view?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/09/pregnant-people-gender-identity/620031/
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
True, I was trying hard to avoid bringing cannibals plants into the discussion!

I do like the focus on reproductive characteristics for definitions of male and female, though. For the J.K. Rowling types who are stuck on biology, like.
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Is cannibals a thing, or just a typo of cannabis?
 


J.K using her platform to advocate for more women managers in football, given the majority are still cis men?

Nah, of course not. Just use it to direct her 14m followers to shit on a trans woman football manager… just for existing.
 
god she’s so fecking awful

Does she not have someone close to her who can tell her to just shut the feck up?
 
It's such a shame. I used to really like the Harry Potter books as a kid. JKR should do just do what any decent billionaire does and drown herself in Chardonnay in the Côte d'Azur. Instead she's picking fights on fecking Twitter with people who have it hard enough as it is.

Makes me wonder what her agents/PR officer think of her online activities.
 
What a pathetic existence. Having all that money and influence and this is the hill she decided to die on...
 
I never liked Harry Potter as fantasy fiction is not my thing, but had quite a lot of admiration for her story being a single mother writing in a cafe. She did quite an amazing job making reading cool again amongst children in the late 90s with midnight queues outside shops and all sorts of side projects her books created in schools.

I think this turn of focus from her is pretty damn sad both in the meaning of the word being upsetting to those who grew up with comfort in her books but from the meaning of the word being quite pathetic to spend all your time on. She seems to pick out low hanging fruit comments by accounts with anime avatars to respond to as if they represent all trans people and then by extension act like a group of about 1% is an existential threat to her.

I wonder how much is just down to long standing resentment that she had to put J.K. instead of Joanne when the first Potter book came out because the publisher told her the wizard story is more likely to be popular with boys but a female name could put them off. I remember that being a story a long time ago.
 
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