4 ms·

So if 'Binary Gender' is, and will always be normative, simply because almost everyone is binary, I wonder what it might be like to be left-handed. Would you co

by wglb 10y ago

So if 'Binary Gender' is, and will always be normative, simply because almost everyone is binary, I wonder what it might be like to be left-handed. Would you consider it social extremism to treat left-handers, which are a seriously small minority (10%) as actually equal to right-handed, normative, normal folks?

edblarney 10y ago
10% is a meaningful minority. As it stands, the world is mostly made for right-handed people, with a lot of accommodation for lefties. In very lose terms, the number of people who identify as 'somewhere on the spectrum of gender' is about 0.5% - but this includes a huge amount of people who have a 'feeling' and frankly, are probably ideological about it, i.e. "I don't believe in gender, ergo, I refuse to identify as one". The actual number of people who truly do not fit in essentially or pragmatically one or the other gender - to the point wherein they would feel uncomfortable going into either a male or female bathroom is extremely small. Remember that even most trans people actually identify with one gender or the other. So, when > 99.9% of a population 'is something' ... 'it's normative'.
- esrauch 10y ago
  Do you not think its noble to make life better for 0.1% of people?
  - edblarney 10y ago
    "Do you not think its noble to make life better for 0.1% of people?" It's not within reason or pragmatism to change how everyone on the planet refers to gender - and our entire 'bathroom social norms' to accommodate a tiny minority. Here is a practical, non-ideological solution: It seems as though every edifice has to provide special facilities for handicapped people. Change the sign on the handicapped door, to something considerably more generic, like 'a bathroom for whoever' - and then those who are not comfortable with male/female - or for any other reason - can use it. Now the 99.9% have their bathrooms - and 'everyone else' who doesn't fit perfectly into that paradigm, can use the 'other' facility.

by wglb 10y ago

edblarney 10y ago

10% is a meaningful minority. As it stands, the world is mostly made for right-handed people, with a lot of accommodation for lefties. In very lose terms, the number of people who identify as 'somewhere on the spectrum of gender' is about 0.5% - but this includes a huge amount of people who have a 'feeling' and frankly, are probably ideological about it, i.e. "I don't believe in gender, ergo, I refuse to identify as one". The actual number of people who truly do not fit in essentially or pragmatically one or the other gender - to the point wherein they would feel uncomfortable going into either a male or female bathroom is extremely small. Remember that even most trans people actually identify with one gender or the other. So, when > 99.9% of a population 'is something' ... 'it's normative'.

esrauch 10y ago
Do you not think its noble to make life better for 0.1% of people?
- edblarney 10y ago
  "Do you not think its noble to make life better for 0.1% of people?" It's not within reason or pragmatism to change how everyone on the planet refers to gender - and our entire 'bathroom social norms' to accommodate a tiny minority. Here is a practical, non-ideological solution: It seems as though every edifice has to provide special facilities for handicapped people. Change the sign on the handicapped door, to something considerably more generic, like 'a bathroom for whoever' - and then those who are not comfortable with male/female - or for any other reason - can use it. Now the 99.9% have their bathrooms - and 'everyone else' who doesn't fit perfectly into that paradigm, can use the 'other' facility.