4 ms·

Perhaps replacing "trans" with "black", "Jew", "Muslim" or any other marginalized minority group, would help you understand why such blanket "I cannot understan

by i000 5y ago

Perhaps replacing "trans" with "black", "Jew", "Muslim" or any other marginalized minority group, would help you understand why such blanket "I cannot understand X at all" causes people to object?

nicoburns 5y ago
I don't think that's fair. Nobody is debating what it means to be black, jewish or muslim. People's attitudes to people who are those things vary, but for the most part everybody is in agreement about which people are black, which people are Jewish, etc. On the other hand, there is no such agreement around gender. People are using terms such as "gender", "man" and "woman" to refer to vastly different concepts ranging from "how someone subjectively feels inside" to "what physiological traits someone has" to "how someone is treated by society". To the extent that not understanding someone comes from not understanding how they personally define gender and how that fits with how other people are using the same term, it seems quite reasonable to be confused.
- hobs 5y ago
  No - there's very much active disagreement on which people are black (colorism in general in the black community is alive and well) and who thinks you are a jew might change a good bit if you ask the local white supremacist or a rabbi. Just because "I know it when I see it" applies to your personal lens its an inarticulate way of viewing the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Right, but when we discuss racism we're not discussing who is black or not black with the proviso that "of course it's fine to treat them badly if they're actually black", whereas it is commonly accepted by people on all sides of the gender debate that people should be treated differently on the basis of their gender.
    - erikerikson 5y ago
      Many of us believe treatment of people should be invariant of who they are.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  > Nobody is debating what it means to be black, jewish or muslim. People's attitudes to people who are those things vary, but for the most part everybody is in agreement about which people are black, which people are Jewish, etc. If this is the case, it’s only the case in the most vanishingly contemporary moment of ours. Both the Holocaust and the American system of chattel slavery were fundamentally predicated on questions of identity (“one drop”). Both moments also fundamentally shifted how and when people consider themselves Black or Jewish, because they are aware that others might consider them so for the purposes of persecution.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    What I see as different here is that people on both sides of the gender debate seem to see differential treatment of "men" and "women" as just. The primary argument is over which people belong in which group. This is different to at least a modern take on slavery where we're usually less concerned with people being mislabelled as black and more concerned with the mistreatment of those who were labelled as black. Incidentally, my view on a lot of gender issues is that's it's not so different, and that the reason trans women experience so much pushback as it least partially due to stigma which is also directed at cisgender men.
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      > What I see as different here is that people on both sides of the gender debate seem to see differential treatment of "men" and "women" as just. I think this needs qualification: I don't think that treatment of individuals on the basis of gender (or sex) is just in the abstract, but I do think there are social policies that are inequal in scope that are justifiable on the basis of making all individuals more equal. > Incidentally, my view on a lot of gender issues is that's it's not so different, and that the reason trans women experience so much pushback as it least partially due to stigma which is also directed at cisgender men. I think a lot of people agree with this! The tension is again in scope: the stigmas and cultural pressures that cisgender men are subjected to don't generally induce people to kick us out of our homes as teenagers, to threaten us in bathrooms, &c.
- nullc 5y ago
  XKCD386-- there is a LOT of dispute over who is White/Black, particularly as its become popular in some circles to define racism as something which can only happen to black people. And thus a discriminatory policy against asians isn't racist to those adopting that definition when they conclude that asians are "white". Or see this op-end regarding the ADL changing their definition of racism to require it be against "people of color" and Whoopi Goldberg claiming the Holocaust was not about race: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/03/whoopi-goldberg-anti-defamation-league-both-embrace-critical-race-theory/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/03/whoopi-go... The same kind of postmodernist thinking that is comfortable redefining well understood biological terms like "male" and "female" to be about "not doing the dishes" or "liking climbing trees" instead of generally unambiguous biological properties is just as comfortable deciding that you're "white" on the basis of not wanting to extend the protection of anti-discrimination laws and norms to you.

by i000 5y ago

Perhaps replacing "trans" with "black", "Jew", "Muslim" or any other marginalized minority group, would help you understand why such blanket "I cannot understand X at all" causes people to object?

nicoburns 5y ago

I don't think that's fair. Nobody is debating what it means to be black, jewish or muslim. People's attitudes to people who are those things vary, but for the most part everybody is in agreement about which people are black, which people are Jewish, etc. On the other hand, there is no such agreement around gender. People are using terms such as "gender", "man" and "woman" to refer to vastly different concepts ranging from "how someone subjectively feels inside" to "what physiological traits someone has" to "how someone is treated by society". To the extent that not understanding someone comes from not understanding how they personally define gender and how that fits with how other people are using the same term, it seems quite reasonable to be confused.

hobs 5y ago
No - there's very much active disagreement on which people are black (colorism in general in the black community is alive and well) and who thinks you are a jew might change a good bit if you ask the local white supremacist or a rabbi. Just because "I know it when I see it" applies to your personal lens its an inarticulate way of viewing the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Right, but when we discuss racism we're not discussing who is black or not black with the proviso that "of course it's fine to treat them badly if they're actually black", whereas it is commonly accepted by people on all sides of the gender debate that people should be treated differently on the basis of their gender.
  - erikerikson 5y ago
    Many of us believe treatment of people should be invariant of who they are.
woodruffw 5y ago
> Nobody is debating what it means to be black, jewish or muslim. People's attitudes to people who are those things vary, but for the most part everybody is in agreement about which people are black, which people are Jewish, etc. If this is the case, it’s only the case in the most vanishingly contemporary moment of ours. Both the Holocaust and the American system of chattel slavery were fundamentally predicated on questions of identity (“one drop”). Both moments also fundamentally shifted how and when people consider themselves Black or Jewish, because they are aware that others might consider them so for the purposes of persecution.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  What I see as different here is that people on both sides of the gender debate seem to see differential treatment of "men" and "women" as just. The primary argument is over which people belong in which group. This is different to at least a modern take on slavery where we're usually less concerned with people being mislabelled as black and more concerned with the mistreatment of those who were labelled as black. Incidentally, my view on a lot of gender issues is that's it's not so different, and that the reason trans women experience so much pushback as it least partially due to stigma which is also directed at cisgender men.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    > What I see as different here is that people on both sides of the gender debate seem to see differential treatment of "men" and "women" as just. I think this needs qualification: I don't think that treatment of individuals on the basis of gender (or sex) is just in the abstract, but I do think there are social policies that are inequal in scope that are justifiable on the basis of making all individuals more equal. > Incidentally, my view on a lot of gender issues is that's it's not so different, and that the reason trans women experience so much pushback as it least partially due to stigma which is also directed at cisgender men. I think a lot of people agree with this! The tension is again in scope: the stigmas and cultural pressures that cisgender men are subjected to don't generally induce people to kick us out of our homes as teenagers, to threaten us in bathrooms, &c.
nullc 5y ago
XKCD386-- there is a LOT of dispute over who is White/Black, particularly as its become popular in some circles to define racism as something which can only happen to black people. And thus a discriminatory policy against asians isn't racist to those adopting that definition when they conclude that asians are "white". Or see this op-end regarding the ADL changing their definition of racism to require it be against "people of color" and Whoopi Goldberg claiming the Holocaust was not about race: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/03/whoopi-goldberg-anti-defamation-league-both-embrace-critical-race-theory/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/03/whoopi-go... The same kind of postmodernist thinking that is comfortable redefining well understood biological terms like "male" and "female" to be about "not doing the dishes" or "liking climbing trees" instead of generally unambiguous biological properties is just as comfortable deciding that you're "white" on the basis of not wanting to extend the protection of anti-discrimination laws and norms to you.