5 ms·

Age is not an arbitrary social structure—it is a number directly proportional to the number of seconds that have passed since you exited your mother's womb. Ge

by quenix 5y ago

Age is not an arbitrary social structure—it is a number directly proportional to the number of seconds that have passed since you exited your mother's womb. Gender expression is a social structure, however. Note that I am using the word 'gender expression' here rather than 'biological sex', which is not an arbitrary social structure. See the difference?

s1artibartfast 5y ago
Then we should separate the concepts of temporal age from expressed age. For most purposes and matters, we should defer to the individual's expressed age of preference. I can think of few instances where someone's temporal age is more relevant than the expressed age.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  > For most purposes and matters, we should defer to the individual's expressed age of preference. Pray tell, what are some relevant "purposes and matters" where an expressed age would be more practical than a... legally binding one? My understanding was that age isn't just counted for the hell of it, since we have socially decided that younger people shouldn't be allowed to partake in certain "purposes and matters", as opposed to how we socially settled on the idea that men and women are equals.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    >Pray tell, what are some relevant "purposes and matters" where an expressed age would be more practical than a... legally binding one? The premise of this case is that an individual wants to change their legal age to what they feel is their expressed age. This would enable them to take advantage of the legal and social practicalities of the younger age. Examples of why some purposes why someone might want to be treated as the age they identify with might be: To receive legal benefits corresponding to the age they identify as. Be protected against discrimination for representing their identified age. Compete in sporting events for their identified age. We have socially settled on the idea that mend and women are equals, and that people can identify as either men or women as they choose. Assuming someone is an adult, they are are considered equal. Why not allow the right to be treated as the age they identify with.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      > Assuming someone is an adult, they are are considered equal. Why not allow the right to be treated as the age they identify with. Not all adults are created equal. Again, society decided that there are hard limits on this for a number of reasons. I get that you're canvassing for some larger queer argument to be made, but it's not a like comparison. I can't identify as 45 years old and run for president just like how I can't identify as 65 years old and claim AARP benefits. You can assume the identity of those ages, but you won't collect any of the benefits that you've listed above.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        Dropping the facade, why not if society can decide that someone born with male sex can identify as a woman and receive the social rights and government privileges reserved for women, why can't someone do the same with age? If it is just a matter of social decision, what are the different factors to grant one but not the other?
        smoldesu 5y ago
        It's a lot easier of a question when you ask it outright. Men and women are separate, but equal. They are indeed entitled to slightly different things legally speaking, but the differences are so marginal that any perceived benefits would almost certainly never outweigh the cost of transitioning. If you legally feel like you should be acknowledged as a different gender, it makes sense that we offer the faculties to let people do that. There is no risk of "abuse" as there would be with age transitioning, and if there are then it should raise important questions about how we treat men and women in today's society. If you've got any examples of how someone could misuse this or take advantage of the system, I'd love to pick through them with you. And, I'm sure you've already heard this quite a bit, but sex and gender are still distinct. You can have gender-affirming surgery and hormone replacement therapy, but a true sex change is not really possible or even feasible in many respects. This is important, because it's certainly true that male and female bodies react differently on a medical level, and separating sex from gender allows us to account for that. Age is closer to sex than it is to gender, in that it has biological implications and an overall meaning that can't be separated from who you are. If you want to identify as a different age, it's a free country: very little is stopping you from telling people you're 20 when you've lived for 30 years. But even the few people who do feel dysphoric about their age are probably never going to go through the trouble. That's why self-expression exists: you can live in any way that makes you happy, "be" any age that you want to be, dress with whatever clothes you want and give yourself whatever name you choose, within the confines of the law. This isn't just a good thing, it's a litmus test for freedom. As I've stated before, age is not arbitrary. We set an age of consent to correspond with sexual maturity and responsibility. We set a legal drinking age to discourage younger people from acting on impulse and inadvertently causing self-harm. We make people wait until they're 16 for a drivers license so that we have a baseline expectation of motor function and risk management. These things are socially decided, but backed with logic. Gender is similarly socially decided, but largely backed on prejudice and history that nobody bothered to challenge. It's important that we revisit these topics as time goes on, and it's important that we bicker about them online: if we don't argue about them, we don't progress as a people. I think the status quo is better than ever though, and the downsides to letting thoroughly convicted individuals change the gender that the government acknowledges them as is an important landmark in that march of progress. Where should it go next? It's up for debate, but trying to draw up a false dichotomy only buries the lede and makes it harder to engage people on the subject. I'm glad you were able to ask your question in a straightforward manner though, I hope this helps.
sascha_sl 5y ago
>'biological sex', which is not an arbitrary social structure. it's still a potentially dangerous shorthand for typical normative and often simply assumed development that deviates more often than assumed, especially because we only really detect and diagnose it if it causes severe issues as "intersex". Also, gender and gender expression are not the same. The gender expression of a stone butch is pretty masculine, but their gender is not male. > age is not an arbitrary social structure That's not the reason age and gender are different. Both are relevant for how we treat people, but gender, at least with our current social assumptions, is an exclusive or, while old people have already been young.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  >Both are relevant for how we treat people, but gender, at least with our current social assumptions, is an exclusive or, while old people have already been young. How do you reconcile this with fluid genders and non-binary genders?
  - sascha_sl 5y ago
    I did. >at least with our current social assumptions Recognition of gender outside the binary is the exception rather than the rule, and people all around you make assumptions all the time that you can't correct. It's just descriptive of material circumstances that nonbinary people will face ignorance. We've made some progress, but it's slow. As a non-binary trans woman, it is absolutely common to have a "fallback binary gender" you'd rather be associated with facing this. You know, for casual encounters, when you don't feel like explaining yourself in detail. Or when accessing trans healthcare, which is often very binary and gatekeepy of everything else (for instance, in Germany you often get denied HRT with F64.8 "Other gender identity disorders", only F64.0 "Transsexualism" is eligible) Funnily enough, TERFs often want trans people to simply pretend like these conditions do not exist, and that it is their personal responsibility as non-cis people to further gender abolitionism (while they still suggest sex is an immutable super important thing).
dragonwriter 5y ago
> 'biological sex', which is not an arbitrary social structure ‘Biological sex’, the two-valued function of the multidimensional space of observed physical characteristics, is an arbitrary social structure, and one which has evolved over time.
- quenix 5y ago
  Hrm, technically speaking that is true. Sex is not even binary—it is bimodal. I was trying to give a simple explanation
pyuser583 5y ago
Couldn’t you argue that “age expression” is a social construct, and should be represented on official documentation? Instead of “biological age?”
kelseyfrog 5y ago
> exited your mother's womb The problem with this is that it is arbitrary. Why this and not date of conception, or date from first heartbeat, or date from first word, or date from walking? Any response will attempt to reify the construct, but that doesn't actually do to constructivists what non-constructivists think it does.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  Those all give you basically the same progression. I don't understand your objection. (Though using walking would have absolutely ridiculous and insulting edge cases.)

by quenix 5y ago

s1artibartfast 5y ago

Then we should separate the concepts of temporal age from expressed age. For most purposes and matters, we should defer to the individual's expressed age of preference. I can think of few instances where someone's temporal age is more relevant than the expressed age.

smoldesu 5y ago
> For most purposes and matters, we should defer to the individual's expressed age of preference. Pray tell, what are some relevant "purposes and matters" where an expressed age would be more practical than a... legally binding one? My understanding was that age isn't just counted for the hell of it, since we have socially decided that younger people shouldn't be allowed to partake in certain "purposes and matters", as opposed to how we socially settled on the idea that men and women are equals.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  >Pray tell, what are some relevant "purposes and matters" where an expressed age would be more practical than a... legally binding one? The premise of this case is that an individual wants to change their legal age to what they feel is their expressed age. This would enable them to take advantage of the legal and social practicalities of the younger age. Examples of why some purposes why someone might want to be treated as the age they identify with might be: To receive legal benefits corresponding to the age they identify as. Be protected against discrimination for representing their identified age. Compete in sporting events for their identified age. We have socially settled on the idea that mend and women are equals, and that people can identify as either men or women as they choose. Assuming someone is an adult, they are are considered equal. Why not allow the right to be treated as the age they identify with.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    > Assuming someone is an adult, they are are considered equal. Why not allow the right to be treated as the age they identify with. Not all adults are created equal. Again, society decided that there are hard limits on this for a number of reasons. I get that you're canvassing for some larger queer argument to be made, but it's not a like comparison. I can't identify as 45 years old and run for president just like how I can't identify as 65 years old and claim AARP benefits. You can assume the identity of those ages, but you won't collect any of the benefits that you've listed above.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      Dropping the facade, why not if society can decide that someone born with male sex can identify as a woman and receive the social rights and government privileges reserved for women, why can't someone do the same with age? If it is just a matter of social decision, what are the different factors to grant one but not the other?
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        It's a lot easier of a question when you ask it outright. Men and women are separate, but equal. They are indeed entitled to slightly different things legally speaking, but the differences are so marginal that any perceived benefits would almost certainly never outweigh the cost of transitioning. If you legally feel like you should be acknowledged as a different gender, it makes sense that we offer the faculties to let people do that. There is no risk of "abuse" as there would be with age transitioning, and if there are then it should raise important questions about how we treat men and women in today's society. If you've got any examples of how someone could misuse this or take advantage of the system, I'd love to pick through them with you. And, I'm sure you've already heard this quite a bit, but sex and gender are still distinct. You can have gender-affirming surgery and hormone replacement therapy, but a true sex change is not really possible or even feasible in many respects. This is important, because it's certainly true that male and female bodies react differently on a medical level, and separating sex from gender allows us to account for that. Age is closer to sex than it is to gender, in that it has biological implications and an overall meaning that can't be separated from who you are. If you want to identify as a different age, it's a free country: very little is stopping you from telling people you're 20 when you've lived for 30 years. But even the few people who do feel dysphoric about their age are probably never going to go through the trouble. That's why self-expression exists: you can live in any way that makes you happy, "be" any age that you want to be, dress with whatever clothes you want and give yourself whatever name you choose, within the confines of the law. This isn't just a good thing, it's a litmus test for freedom. As I've stated before, age is not arbitrary. We set an age of consent to correspond with sexual maturity and responsibility. We set a legal drinking age to discourage younger people from acting on impulse and inadvertently causing self-harm. We make people wait until they're 16 for a drivers license so that we have a baseline expectation of motor function and risk management. These things are socially decided, but backed with logic. Gender is similarly socially decided, but largely backed on prejudice and history that nobody bothered to challenge. It's important that we revisit these topics as time goes on, and it's important that we bicker about them online: if we don't argue about them, we don't progress as a people. I think the status quo is better than ever though, and the downsides to letting thoroughly convicted individuals change the gender that the government acknowledges them as is an important landmark in that march of progress. Where should it go next? It's up for debate, but trying to draw up a false dichotomy only buries the lede and makes it harder to engage people on the subject. I'm glad you were able to ask your question in a straightforward manner though, I hope this helps.

sascha_sl 5y ago

>'biological sex', which is not an arbitrary social structure. it's still a potentially dangerous shorthand for typical normative and often simply assumed development that deviates more often than assumed, especially because we only really detect and diagnose it if it causes severe issues as "intersex". Also, gender and gender expression are not the same. The gender expression of a stone butch is pretty masculine, but their gender is not male. > age is not an arbitrary social structure That's not the reason age and gender are different. Both are relevant for how we treat people, but gender, at least with our current social assumptions, is an exclusive or, while old people have already been young.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
>Both are relevant for how we treat people, but gender, at least with our current social assumptions, is an exclusive or, while old people have already been young. How do you reconcile this with fluid genders and non-binary genders?
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  I did. >at least with our current social assumptions Recognition of gender outside the binary is the exception rather than the rule, and people all around you make assumptions all the time that you can't correct. It's just descriptive of material circumstances that nonbinary people will face ignorance. We've made some progress, but it's slow. As a non-binary trans woman, it is absolutely common to have a "fallback binary gender" you'd rather be associated with facing this. You know, for casual encounters, when you don't feel like explaining yourself in detail. Or when accessing trans healthcare, which is often very binary and gatekeepy of everything else (for instance, in Germany you often get denied HRT with F64.8 "Other gender identity disorders", only F64.0 "Transsexualism" is eligible) Funnily enough, TERFs often want trans people to simply pretend like these conditions do not exist, and that it is their personal responsibility as non-cis people to further gender abolitionism (while they still suggest sex is an immutable super important thing).

dragonwriter 5y ago

> 'biological sex', which is not an arbitrary social structure ‘Biological sex’, the two-valued function of the multidimensional space of observed physical characteristics, is an arbitrary social structure, and one which has evolved over time.

quenix 5y ago
Hrm, technically speaking that is true. Sex is not even binary—it is bimodal. I was trying to give a simple explanation

pyuser583 5y ago

Couldn’t you argue that “age expression” is a social construct, and should be represented on official documentation? Instead of “biological age?”

kelseyfrog 5y ago

> exited your mother's womb The problem with this is that it is arbitrary. Why this and not date of conception, or date from first heartbeat, or date from first word, or date from walking? Any response will attempt to reify the construct, but that doesn't actually do to constructivists what non-constructivists think it does.

Dylan16807 5y ago
Those all give you basically the same progression. I don't understand your objection. (Though using walking would have absolutely ridiculous and insulting edge cases.)