4 ms·

If everything is constructed, if everything is relative, if everything is subjective and if everything is on a spectrum then what are we even arguing about? No

If everything is constructed, if everything is relative, if everything is subjective and if everything is on a spectrum then what are we even arguing about? Nobody fits their gender norms perfectly. No culture has identical gender norms. Even physiologically chromosomes are more nuanced than X and Y.

slightwinder 5y ago
Because not everything is constructed, nor relative. And the spectrum is not evenly. People are also not always honest, be it on purpose or by ignorance. And Science, as also society still has many open questions. That's why people are still arguing. And then there are also the gazillion of traumatized people who just fight against those who abuse them, whether it's justified or not, whether they hit the right target or the wrong one. It's all not that simple...
- pcmoney 5y ago
  I don’t believe everything is constructed and I don’t believe in most statements of moral relativism. However the people involved in the arguments generally favor some view of subjective truth and/or moral relativism, at which point why do they care? (Similar to the question of: if people claim gender is a social construct how can someone be the wrong one?) I think the solution is nothing new, it relies on going back to teaching a classical liberal definition of tolerance and the objective morality of empathy and compassion. No need to reinvent the wheel.
xupybd 5y ago
The one thing that seems a little rough is in sports other than that I'd agree.
- cloutchaser 5y ago
  It's also a bit rough on women in women's prisons where any sex offender declaring themselves a woman can now get moved to.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    Doesn't it say more about our prisons that this is a real concern though? That the lack of ability to prevent prisoners from sexually assaulting one another is the expected norm? And it isn't like there aren't women capable of sexually assaulting each other, but I guess that's more acceptable somehow?
    - cloutchaser 5y ago
      You are literally allowing men who sexually assaulted women to say they are women and house them with women. What percent of male sexual offenders will sexually assault women, vs the general female prison population assaulting women? You are literally locking foxes with the hens. On a sidenote, your excusing away of this behaviour under the guise of "it happens anyway" is ridiculous. I wonder under what prison in the world assault and violence is a solved problem. Oh, complete isolation prisons I guess.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        > You are literally allowing men who sexually assaulted women to say they are women and house them with women. We literally house women who've sexually assaulted women with other women, and men who've sexually assaulted men with other men. > On a sidenote, your excusing away of this behaviour under the guise of "it happens anyway" is ridiculous. I am not excusing the behavior, rather the opposite: I'm saying that we shouldn't allow sexual assault in prison period. Ever. I think it is ridiculous that we accept it at all.
        cloutchaser 5y ago
        A lot fewer percent of women assault women sexually than men, and vice versa. That was my whole point. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the strength differences and if an assault by a penis is different to a lesbian assault… And We don’t accept it. That’s not why it happens. It happens because it’s not possible to prevent it. You clearly have some utopian vision of humanity but the reality is different.
api 5y ago
I take a really libertarian stance on this stuff: why should I care? If someone wants me to call them 'she' when they were biologically born 'he', why not? They're not hurting me or anyone else. If it's not my thing, that's fine. Guess what? One of the cornerstones of libertarianism is: everyone is not like me and that's okay. The whole thing is obvious right-wing outrage trolling. Yes, before someone says it, the left does outrage trolling too. Read Utah's Republican governor's letter on his veto of an anti-trans bill: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/read-utah-governors-letter-on-transgender-athlete-ban-veto.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/read-utah-governors-... TL;DR: I am vetoing this because it's pointless theatrics that could hurt people. I must also add that this is a tiny percentage of people here. Even if (hypothetically) this is not a good thing, it's not going to cause the (rolls eyes) collapse of Western civilization. A nuclear war on the other hand could destroy Western civilization. I hear one of the extreme right's favorite strongman buffoons is threatening such a thing right now.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  As a meta response, this might be relevant "arms race heats up just as china reveals space nukes america responds with trans admiral" https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china-reveals-space-nukes-america-responds-with-trans-admiral/ https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china...
  - api 5y ago
    Sorry but try as it might the Babylon Bee is just not funny. It reads like some right wingers wanted to create a "safe space" version of The Onion where the humor would never turn on them. It reads like that because that's what it is, which is why it's not funny. It's also not funny because it punches down. Punching down is never funny, which is why the left needs to stop making fun of "rednecks" (read: poor white people). This particular joke isn't funny because if the story were real it would be badass. The USA could put nukes in space in a heartbeat. We even have a fucking space force. We could put tons of nukes in space with giant reusable stainless steel rockets. That would give us transsexual admirals commanding 1950s-style sci-fi shiny rockets full of nuclear space missiles, which would totally badass. It would be the ultimate nightmare vision of the evil liberal industrial rational West's Kali Yuga vaporizing the brave strongman soldiers of Traditionalism. Take that Dugin! Take that Putin-on-a-horse! Even worse... make the atomic trans space admiral Jewish...
raffraffraff 5y ago
Gender isn't sex, and people can claim any gender they want. I believe there are hundreds of them nowadays. But with sex, almost everyone is either unambiguously male or unambiguously female, and intersex conditions are close to a rounding error, statistically. Also, trans has nothing to do with intersex, so mixing up all that X and Y stuff into this discussion doesn't really help.

slightwinder 5y ago

Because not everything is constructed, nor relative. And the spectrum is not evenly. People are also not always honest, be it on purpose or by ignorance. And Science, as also society still has many open questions. That's why people are still arguing. And then there are also the gazillion of traumatized people who just fight against those who abuse them, whether it's justified or not, whether they hit the right target or the wrong one. It's all not that simple...

pcmoney 5y ago
I don’t believe everything is constructed and I don’t believe in most statements of moral relativism. However the people involved in the arguments generally favor some view of subjective truth and/or moral relativism, at which point why do they care? (Similar to the question of: if people claim gender is a social construct how can someone be the wrong one?) I think the solution is nothing new, it relies on going back to teaching a classical liberal definition of tolerance and the objective morality of empathy and compassion. No need to reinvent the wheel.

xupybd 5y ago

The one thing that seems a little rough is in sports other than that I'd agree.

cloutchaser 5y ago
It's also a bit rough on women in women's prisons where any sex offender declaring themselves a woman can now get moved to.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Doesn't it say more about our prisons that this is a real concern though? That the lack of ability to prevent prisoners from sexually assaulting one another is the expected norm? And it isn't like there aren't women capable of sexually assaulting each other, but I guess that's more acceptable somehow?
  - cloutchaser 5y ago
    You are literally allowing men who sexually assaulted women to say they are women and house them with women. What percent of male sexual offenders will sexually assault women, vs the general female prison population assaulting women? You are literally locking foxes with the hens. On a sidenote, your excusing away of this behaviour under the guise of "it happens anyway" is ridiculous. I wonder under what prison in the world assault and violence is a solved problem. Oh, complete isolation prisons I guess.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      > You are literally allowing men who sexually assaulted women to say they are women and house them with women. We literally house women who've sexually assaulted women with other women, and men who've sexually assaulted men with other men. > On a sidenote, your excusing away of this behaviour under the guise of "it happens anyway" is ridiculous. I am not excusing the behavior, rather the opposite: I'm saying that we shouldn't allow sexual assault in prison period. Ever. I think it is ridiculous that we accept it at all.
      - cloutchaser 5y ago
        A lot fewer percent of women assault women sexually than men, and vice versa. That was my whole point. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the strength differences and if an assault by a penis is different to a lesbian assault… And We don’t accept it. That’s not why it happens. It happens because it’s not possible to prevent it. You clearly have some utopian vision of humanity but the reality is different.

api 5y ago

I take a really libertarian stance on this stuff: why should I care? If someone wants me to call them 'she' when they were biologically born 'he', why not? They're not hurting me or anyone else. If it's not my thing, that's fine. Guess what? One of the cornerstones of libertarianism is: everyone is not like me and that's okay. The whole thing is obvious right-wing outrage trolling. Yes, before someone says it, the left does outrage trolling too. Read Utah's Republican governor's letter on his veto of an anti-trans bill: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/read-utah-governors-letter-on-transgender-athlete-ban-veto.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/read-utah-governors-... TL;DR: I am vetoing this because it's pointless theatrics that could hurt people. I must also add that this is a tiny percentage of people here. Even if (hypothetically) this is not a good thing, it's not going to cause the (rolls eyes) collapse of Western civilization. A nuclear war on the other hand could destroy Western civilization. I hear one of the extreme right's favorite strongman buffoons is threatening such a thing right now.

hackerfromthefu 5y ago
As a meta response, this might be relevant "arms race heats up just as china reveals space nukes america responds with trans admiral" https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china-reveals-space-nukes-america-responds-with-trans-admiral/ https://babylonbee.com/news/arms-race-heats-up-just-as-china...
- api 5y ago
  Sorry but try as it might the Babylon Bee is just not funny. It reads like some right wingers wanted to create a "safe space" version of The Onion where the humor would never turn on them. It reads like that because that's what it is, which is why it's not funny. It's also not funny because it punches down. Punching down is never funny, which is why the left needs to stop making fun of "rednecks" (read: poor white people). This particular joke isn't funny because if the story were real it would be badass. The USA could put nukes in space in a heartbeat. We even have a fucking space force. We could put tons of nukes in space with giant reusable stainless steel rockets. That would give us transsexual admirals commanding 1950s-style sci-fi shiny rockets full of nuclear space missiles, which would totally badass. It would be the ultimate nightmare vision of the evil liberal industrial rational West's Kali Yuga vaporizing the brave strongman soldiers of Traditionalism. Take that Dugin! Take that Putin-on-a-horse! Even worse... make the atomic trans space admiral Jewish...

raffraffraff 5y ago

Gender isn't sex, and people can claim any gender they want. I believe there are hundreds of them nowadays. But with sex, almost everyone is either unambiguously male or unambiguously female, and intersex conditions are close to a rounding error, statistically. Also, trans has nothing to do with intersex, so mixing up all that X and Y stuff into this discussion doesn't really help.