4 ms·

In the nicest possible way I'd say you're missing the point. To what degree gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal differences in the brain

In the nicest possible way I'd say you're missing the point. To what degree gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal differences in the brain depending on your chromosomes is largely settled (IMO), the real question is just what is going on with gender dysphoria. Is it (and do we treat it as) a mental illness? (The DSM-V calls it a disorder.) What are the causes? Is it just attention-seeking? Or is it just an aspect of personality like preferring the color blue over red, only with much more important social implications? Is it changeable? Does it go away? Is the "gender-affirmative" approach the right one, where we apparently need to up-heave societal norms to make these people "comfortable", whatever that entails? Should such up-heaving be funded by the tax payer? Can we make them "comfortable" while not making other people "uncomfortable"? These and many others are the questions that matter. I don't have a strong opinion in the matter other than I know non-passable trans people creep me out on a sub-rational level (so I just avoid them, like spiders). I'd like to ignore the problem and let the scientists and doctors solve it. But when scientists and doctors are busy purging other scientists and doctors instead of doing science and medicine I guess I'd rather have a decree from the Supreme Court that settles things (at least temporarily) one way or another for society as a whole. If they pick wrong, the scientists that believe so better start coming up with good evidence, since apparently what's presently available is either not good enough to actually be convincing one way or another or it's possible to become a practitioner in the field without a firm grasp of the current state of evidence. Most commenters here won't read the submitted article. I admit I only skimmed it, for it is long, but what I did read was also good. It addresses some of these questions and more. This sort of reporting on purges rarely happens.

toothbrush 11y ago
> To what degree gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal differences in the brain depending on your chromosomes is largely settled (IMO) I don't actually think this is true. Disclaimer: a close friend of mine studies this academically, so i'm probably incorrectly passing along a vague version of what i've been told, plus i have a certain level of personal investment in the issue. Anyhow, there's rather a difference of opinion in the schools of thought of queer theory (roughly: it's all a social construct) versus sexual difference theory (roughly: no, the physical body is important in the equation) -- if i understand correctly, this is far from a settled question. I don't want to attack you personally, because i believe you are commenting in good faith (as am i), but this sentence: > I don't have a strong opinion in the matter other than I know non-passable trans people creep me out on a sub-rational level (so I just avoid them, like spiders). Comes across as rather hurtful. I hope that sometime in the near future (like, 10–20 years? one can dream), this sentence will be seen as equally dubious as someone saying something like "black people creep me out, i don't know why but i try to avoid them". I really don't mean to be mean about it, i'm just pointing out that this attitude won't help any early-stage transpeople feel welcome or comfortable. We as the grass-roots society should probably do our bit to make everyone feel accepted and welcome, especially if they do not conform to our (gender expression, as well as other) expectations. I mention the bottom-up point-of-view in contrast to your "Supreme Court" / institutional answer to the issue. Respectfully.
- whitegrape 11y ago
  I figured that sentence might be an issue, but I left it in anyway as an honest relay of my thinking. It may be dubious, and may one day be as dubious as the similar sentence applied to black people, but I think it's an entirely natural reaction (just as girls avoiding the boy with terrible acne in school) given our evolutionary history and unlikely to vanish due to social pressure -- it will just become better hidden (few admit to being a racist), but still in plain sight by way of revealed preferences ("white flight"). Being natural doesn't make it good, but it does mean policies and expectations should be realistic. Singapore has achieved racial integration by very authoritarian measures like deciding where you can live and who your neighbors are, which was and is a realistic policy given the alternative outcome of just about everywhere else of racial groups bunching together against the outer culture which ends up causing various problems for the local government. In the absence of negative reinforcement like demonizing people who don't at least appear welcoming to transpeople in the same way racists are demonized (this is the way I predict things going, sadly), and in the absence of well-enforced top-down measures, expectations should be for a long slog towards grudging acceptance of the state of the world. I dream of a more grand future where I can just rewrite my personality(ies) to feel differently about various things, even to rewrite my brain and form a new body to experience what it's truly like to be female, or Hutu. The natural way of things is evil, but it must be considered and dealt with honestly.
  - toothbrush 11y ago
    Fair enough! I don't have much to add to the discussion, but wanted to say that i understand the thinking behind what you said, and appreciate the painful honesty. You're probably right that for a majority of people the best one can hope for is grudging acceptance. I appreciate that at least you admit your internal biases (of which i also have quite a number, as is natural) -- that's indeed all anyone can ask for, as a first step towards a more accepting society. Thanks :)
  - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
    You may be interested in this blog post, by Eric Raymond: "Preventing visceral racism" http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001 In it he reports a similar "natural" reaction to some racial group that he'd never met before. But his theory is that simple exposure is enough for people to move past this, as long as they don't construct rationalizations for their initial feeling of "something isn't right here". Kind of ironic, as he says a lot of things that many, myself included, would consider racist, but you never know, he may be onto something.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> To what degree gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal differences in the brain depending on your chromosomes is largely settled (IMO) Gender (socially ascribed) is completely a social construct, consisting both of categorization by outward characteristics into some number of genders, and social stereotypical roles for those genders. Biological sex features are entirely biological, but not entirely genetic (there are substantial environmental factors), and the genetic portion is more complex than most people thing -- and isn't strictly binary at a genetic level, even before the variations in phenotype due to other factors come into play. Gender identity is complicated, and I don't think its at all well settled what the basis is; there's certainly some influence from the surrounding societies construct of gender, there's certainly some relation (beside just the biological sex features on which social gender constructs are overtly based) from biology (genetic and otherwise), and I don't think there is any good model of exactly what contributions of each type exist, what other contributions exist, etc.

toothbrush 11y ago

> To what degree gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal differences in the brain depending on your chromosomes is largely settled (IMO) I don't actually think this is true. Disclaimer: a close friend of mine studies this academically, so i'm probably incorrectly passing along a vague version of what i've been told, plus i have a certain level of personal investment in the issue. Anyhow, there's rather a difference of opinion in the schools of thought of queer theory (roughly: it's all a social construct) versus sexual difference theory (roughly: no, the physical body is important in the equation) -- if i understand correctly, this is far from a settled question. I don't want to attack you personally, because i believe you are commenting in good faith (as am i), but this sentence: > I don't have a strong opinion in the matter other than I know non-passable trans people creep me out on a sub-rational level (so I just avoid them, like spiders). Comes across as rather hurtful. I hope that sometime in the near future (like, 10–20 years? one can dream), this sentence will be seen as equally dubious as someone saying something like "black people creep me out, i don't know why but i try to avoid them". I really don't mean to be mean about it, i'm just pointing out that this attitude won't help any early-stage transpeople feel welcome or comfortable. We as the grass-roots society should probably do our bit to make everyone feel accepted and welcome, especially if they do not conform to our (gender expression, as well as other) expectations. I mention the bottom-up point-of-view in contrast to your "Supreme Court" / institutional answer to the issue. Respectfully.

whitegrape 11y ago
I figured that sentence might be an issue, but I left it in anyway as an honest relay of my thinking. It may be dubious, and may one day be as dubious as the similar sentence applied to black people, but I think it's an entirely natural reaction (just as girls avoiding the boy with terrible acne in school) given our evolutionary history and unlikely to vanish due to social pressure -- it will just become better hidden (few admit to being a racist), but still in plain sight by way of revealed preferences ("white flight"). Being natural doesn't make it good, but it does mean policies and expectations should be realistic. Singapore has achieved racial integration by very authoritarian measures like deciding where you can live and who your neighbors are, which was and is a realistic policy given the alternative outcome of just about everywhere else of racial groups bunching together against the outer culture which ends up causing various problems for the local government. In the absence of negative reinforcement like demonizing people who don't at least appear welcoming to transpeople in the same way racists are demonized (this is the way I predict things going, sadly), and in the absence of well-enforced top-down measures, expectations should be for a long slog towards grudging acceptance of the state of the world. I dream of a more grand future where I can just rewrite my personality(ies) to feel differently about various things, even to rewrite my brain and form a new body to experience what it's truly like to be female, or Hutu. The natural way of things is evil, but it must be considered and dealt with honestly.
- toothbrush 11y ago
  Fair enough! I don't have much to add to the discussion, but wanted to say that i understand the thinking behind what you said, and appreciate the painful honesty. You're probably right that for a majority of people the best one can hope for is grudging acceptance. I appreciate that at least you admit your internal biases (of which i also have quite a number, as is natural) -- that's indeed all anyone can ask for, as a first step towards a more accepting society. Thanks :)
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  You may be interested in this blog post, by Eric Raymond: "Preventing visceral racism" http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5001 In it he reports a similar "natural" reaction to some racial group that he'd never met before. But his theory is that simple exposure is enough for people to move past this, as long as they don't construct rationalizations for their initial feeling of "something isn't right here". Kind of ironic, as he says a lot of things that many, myself included, would consider racist, but you never know, he may be onto something.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> To what degree gender is a social construct vs actually having non-minimal differences in the brain depending on your chromosomes is largely settled (IMO) Gender (socially ascribed) is completely a social construct, consisting both of categorization by outward characteristics into some number of genders, and social stereotypical roles for those genders. Biological sex features are entirely biological, but not entirely genetic (there are substantial environmental factors), and the genetic portion is more complex than most people thing -- and isn't strictly binary at a genetic level, even before the variations in phenotype due to other factors come into play. Gender identity is complicated, and I don't think its at all well settled what the basis is; there's certainly some influence from the surrounding societies construct of gender, there's certainly some relation (beside just the biological sex features on which social gender constructs are overtly based) from biology (genetic and otherwise), and I don't think there is any good model of exactly what contributions of each type exist, what other contributions exist, etc.