9 ms·

Whenever people make this big deal about undermining the meaning of biology by using gender identity as the center of everyday language, all I can think is it's

by Latty 4y ago

Whenever people make this big deal about undermining the meaning of biology by using gender identity as the center of everyday language, all I can think is it's literally no different to adoption, which we all accept. An adoptive parent is a parent. We don't specify "adoptive" all the time, and it'd be rude to refuse to refer to adoptive parents as parents because they aren't biologically related to their children in the same way. We have done exactly this kind of language change in schools over that issue too, teachers often prefer "guardians" to "parents" in some contexts these days because some children won't live with parents, things like that. To pretend this hurts people is just counter to these examples we see in reality, it's just trying to use the words that apply to everyone, not just the most common case. The cost is so small, the attempts to push back on it seem actively spiteful, because there is no reason to contest it generally. The thing it brings to mind is the "but marriage means a man and a woman" argument from the attempts to stop marriage equality.

concordDance 4y ago
The costs are small but so are the benefits.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  Treating others with respect, dignity and kindness is a small cost for us, but could mean the world to a person who faces discrimination.
  - erosenbe0 4y ago
    I agree but I also see low hanging fruit with real data backing it that I'd like to see addressed with more urgency than this. My buddy who is a lefty factory worker complains that it is more dangerous for him to operate certain equipment. And indeed studies seem to suggest this. But the talking heads don't get into this much.
    - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
      I am somehow more interested in people who commit suicide, face work and housing discrimination over some OSHA violations, on the other hand, and unlike you, I can't see why those orthogonal issues can not be tackled in parallel. Care to enlighten me?
    - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
      https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2022/11/20/colorado-springs-nightclub-shooting/10744036002 https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2022/11/20/colora... There is absolutely no discrimination or data pointing the bigotry and hatred towards LGBTQ people, absolutely zero. In case it wasn't obvious, I was being sarcastic. Look each and every one of those people up, and tell me they are not real, tell me they didn't die as a consequence of people like you; unempathetic, ignorant, and full of bigotry for people who drew a bad card at birth. https://imgur.com/gallery/u6djZYX https://imgur.com/gallery/u6djZYX https://i.imgur.com/8EHugaA.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/8EHugaA.jpeg
erosenbe0 4y ago
Agreed but scale has to be a factor. Millions of American children are in the custody of grandparents or the foster system at any given time. Secondly, there is way more friction here than with a term like guardian, which represents a situation that is universal thoughtout humanity, and always has been. The common language only changed because of the need for accuracy and inclusiveness in things like school handbooks, not because it wasn't fully understood and accepted by the population as being an inevitable element of human populations for anywhere from 1 in 10 to 1 in 100 children.
origin_path 4y ago
"Parent -> Guardian" or "adoptive parent -> parent" hardly matter because there's very little chance of being surprised by the change, the terms are nearly equivalent and the differences are unimportant in almost all contexts. In contrast the differences between "man" and "woman" are stark and matter in all kinds of contexts.
jimbokun 4y ago
Why is it OK to not call cis-women what they want to be called? They do not want to be called "menstruators", they want to be called women. Why does their opinion about what they want to be called not matter?
- Volundr 4y ago
  > Why does their opinion about what they want to be called not matter? I mean it does, but it doesn't override everyone else's. Consider people with with albinism. A medical text should not refer to people with albinism as albino men, even if some men might prefer to be called "men" instead of albinos. That'd mean calling albino women "men" which they clearly are not. In the same way, assuming you accept that trans men are men (which the author purports to) calling people who menstruate women is calling these men something that they are not. So you need to use something that actually describes what you are trying to describe. This is also true since not all biological women menstruate, so even there if you use the term "women" instead of "people who menstruate" when discussing something medical that has to do with menstruating, you've now used an inaccurate term that describes a larger group of people than you are discussing.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    >>I mean it does, but it doesn't override everyone else's. That same logic should apply to people who claim to be the opposite gender from what they were born. "Women" as a term is incredibly useful and descriptive when referring to females. It's strongly correlated with multiple important traits. When its definition is changed to mean any one who assigns the word 'woman' to themselves, the word conveys no meaningful information.
    - HyperSane 4y ago
      >> When its definition is changed to mean any one who assigns the word 'woman' to themselves, the word conveys no meaningful information. This is the heart of the matter, and they even admit as much when they have to use terms like AFAB or ciswoman. These distinctions were not needed until they intentionally made the term "woman" meaningless.
anon291 4y ago
On the other hand, adoptive parents don't insist that there is literally no difference between them and a bio parent. In fact, if you take adoption home studies and do the training (in california at least) to adopt a child, you will learn the many ways in which you are not like biological family. My wife and I went through most of the process, but never ended up going through with the adoption (open to it in the future). We were told in no uncertain terms that pretending you are basically a family like everyone else and not being truthful with your child about their origins is bad for the child. Thus, it should not be offensive to say things like 'trans women are biologically male, thus have biological male advantages in things like sports'. This is a controversial statement. However, there is a section of the trans community who will insist that trans women are actually literally women like all other women.
- evanfarrar 4y ago
  I don’t think the fact is controversial, it’s just that the fact lacks context of being directed at a harassed minority. “There are higher crime statistics in majority black communities” is also a true but if you constantly go around screaming it we will wonder what your intentions are, education of facts?
HyperSane 4y ago
Adoptive parents don't call anyone a bigot for not pretending that they gave birth to their adopted children.
- evanfarrar 4y ago
  And biological parents don’t believe society will collapse and people will forget how to make babies if I call them “Guardians”
pnt12 4y ago
Keep in mind it's easy to break down the adoption argument. In many situations, the adoptive parent is considered the parent, if the parent and child are OK with it, so is society in general. But at a doctor appointment, it is imperative to distinguish between biological and civil parenthood. But apart from that: I (and many others nowadays) are OK with considering male to female trans as women. If you want to be a woman and act like a woman, I'll consider you a woman regardless of your biological sex. But I'm not OK with referring to people as menstruators and semen donors: I think that's humiliating. I guess I draw the line there: I respect trans identity, but I don't want that every single text must think about every single minority and accommodate them at all costs. I have a friend with 1 arm but I wouldn't be outraged if someone said "people have two arms". I wouldn't even think about it, and neither would he: it's generally true, and if it's not said in bad faith, who cares? Talk about walking on egg shells! Let's drop the thought police act, which some people like way to much, and let's fucking try to live together.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  > apart from that: I (and many others nowadays) are OK with considering male to female trans as women. If you want to be a woman and act like a woman, I'll consider you a woman regardless of your biological sex. I'm fine to let trans men into male spaces around me because that's my decision, as a man, to waive some of my rights temporarily. But for us to declare that a man can be a woman is giving away women's rights, and that's not okay.

by Latty 4y ago

concordDance 4y ago

The costs are small but so are the benefits.

PartiallyTyped 4y ago
Treating others with respect, dignity and kindness is a small cost for us, but could mean the world to a person who faces discrimination.
- erosenbe0 4y ago
  I agree but I also see low hanging fruit with real data backing it that I'd like to see addressed with more urgency than this. My buddy who is a lefty factory worker complains that it is more dangerous for him to operate certain equipment. And indeed studies seem to suggest this. But the talking heads don't get into this much.
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    I am somehow more interested in people who commit suicide, face work and housing discrimination over some OSHA violations, on the other hand, and unlike you, I can't see why those orthogonal issues can not be tackled in parallel. Care to enlighten me?
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2022/11/20/colorado-springs-nightclub-shooting/10744036002 https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2022/11/20/colora... There is absolutely no discrimination or data pointing the bigotry and hatred towards LGBTQ people, absolutely zero. In case it wasn't obvious, I was being sarcastic. Look each and every one of those people up, and tell me they are not real, tell me they didn't die as a consequence of people like you; unempathetic, ignorant, and full of bigotry for people who drew a bad card at birth. https://imgur.com/gallery/u6djZYX https://imgur.com/gallery/u6djZYX https://i.imgur.com/8EHugaA.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/8EHugaA.jpeg

erosenbe0 4y ago

Agreed but scale has to be a factor. Millions of American children are in the custody of grandparents or the foster system at any given time. Secondly, there is way more friction here than with a term like guardian, which represents a situation that is universal thoughtout humanity, and always has been. The common language only changed because of the need for accuracy and inclusiveness in things like school handbooks, not because it wasn't fully understood and accepted by the population as being an inevitable element of human populations for anywhere from 1 in 10 to 1 in 100 children.

origin_path 4y ago

"Parent -> Guardian" or "adoptive parent -> parent" hardly matter because there's very little chance of being surprised by the change, the terms are nearly equivalent and the differences are unimportant in almost all contexts. In contrast the differences between "man" and "woman" are stark and matter in all kinds of contexts.

jimbokun 4y ago

Why is it OK to not call cis-women what they want to be called? They do not want to be called "menstruators", they want to be called women. Why does their opinion about what they want to be called not matter?

Volundr 4y ago
> Why does their opinion about what they want to be called not matter? I mean it does, but it doesn't override everyone else's. Consider people with with albinism. A medical text should not refer to people with albinism as albino men, even if some men might prefer to be called "men" instead of albinos. That'd mean calling albino women "men" which they clearly are not. In the same way, assuming you accept that trans men are men (which the author purports to) calling people who menstruate women is calling these men something that they are not. So you need to use something that actually describes what you are trying to describe. This is also true since not all biological women menstruate, so even there if you use the term "women" instead of "people who menstruate" when discussing something medical that has to do with menstruating, you've now used an inaccurate term that describes a larger group of people than you are discussing.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  >>I mean it does, but it doesn't override everyone else's. That same logic should apply to people who claim to be the opposite gender from what they were born. "Women" as a term is incredibly useful and descriptive when referring to females. It's strongly correlated with multiple important traits. When its definition is changed to mean any one who assigns the word 'woman' to themselves, the word conveys no meaningful information.
  - HyperSane 4y ago
    >> When its definition is changed to mean any one who assigns the word 'woman' to themselves, the word conveys no meaningful information. This is the heart of the matter, and they even admit as much when they have to use terms like AFAB or ciswoman. These distinctions were not needed until they intentionally made the term "woman" meaningless.

anon291 4y ago

On the other hand, adoptive parents don't insist that there is literally no difference between them and a bio parent. In fact, if you take adoption home studies and do the training (in california at least) to adopt a child, you will learn the many ways in which you are not like biological family. My wife and I went through most of the process, but never ended up going through with the adoption (open to it in the future). We were told in no uncertain terms that pretending you are basically a family like everyone else and not being truthful with your child about their origins is bad for the child. Thus, it should not be offensive to say things like 'trans women are biologically male, thus have biological male advantages in things like sports'. This is a controversial statement. However, there is a section of the trans community who will insist that trans women are actually literally women like all other women.

evanfarrar 4y ago
I don’t think the fact is controversial, it’s just that the fact lacks context of being directed at a harassed minority. “There are higher crime statistics in majority black communities” is also a true but if you constantly go around screaming it we will wonder what your intentions are, education of facts?

HyperSane 4y ago

Adoptive parents don't call anyone a bigot for not pretending that they gave birth to their adopted children.

evanfarrar 4y ago
And biological parents don’t believe society will collapse and people will forget how to make babies if I call them “Guardians”

pnt12 4y ago

Keep in mind it's easy to break down the adoption argument. In many situations, the adoptive parent is considered the parent, if the parent and child are OK with it, so is society in general. But at a doctor appointment, it is imperative to distinguish between biological and civil parenthood. But apart from that: I (and many others nowadays) are OK with considering male to female trans as women. If you want to be a woman and act like a woman, I'll consider you a woman regardless of your biological sex. But I'm not OK with referring to people as menstruators and semen donors: I think that's humiliating. I guess I draw the line there: I respect trans identity, but I don't want that every single text must think about every single minority and accommodate them at all costs. I have a friend with 1 arm but I wouldn't be outraged if someone said "people have two arms". I wouldn't even think about it, and neither would he: it's generally true, and if it's not said in bad faith, who cares? Talk about walking on egg shells! Let's drop the thought police act, which some people like way to much, and let's fucking try to live together.

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
> apart from that: I (and many others nowadays) are OK with considering male to female trans as women. If you want to be a woman and act like a woman, I'll consider you a woman regardless of your biological sex. I'm fine to let trans men into male spaces around me because that's my decision, as a man, to waive some of my rights temporarily. But for us to declare that a man can be a woman is giving away women's rights, and that's not okay.