Author Topic: Gender Culture  (Read 55975 times)

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Offline kimmy

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1515 on: December 23, 2020, 02:43:35 pm »
There is obviously a theoretical idea of girl/womanhood that is rigidly enforced.

I'm not sure that there is a theoretical ideal girl in our society anymore. There's lots of cultural influences that push in certain directions, and lots of them are negative stereotypes and pornification and glamorization of certain kinds of femininity.

And I'm not sure it's rigidly enforced. And perhaps ironically the biggest enforcers aren't conservative parents or woke teachers or other well-meaning adults... it's other girls.

Just not by the people who don't want to be constrained by it. And it makes sense since almost all identities are as much about what you are not as what you are.

I'm not sure that's true either. I think most identities are an affirmative statement. "I'm a Canadian Muslim man!" is three affirmative statements.  That statement might imply things that he isn't, as well... one might assume that being Muslim he might have conservative values... but that might well be false and is something that somebody else inferred, not something he explicitly stated.  We might sometimes joke that Canadians define their identity as being Not American, but I think most people believe that saying they are Canadian is an affirmative statement, not a denial of being American.   And... I don't think "non like other girls" is really an identity, anymore than saying you're not American is an identity.

You keep saying this without any evidence of any kind. It's become a shibboleth for you but I have no idea what it's based on. i have literally never seen anyone say "girls who like trucks are actually boys." Which is weird since you seem to be saying it's the main view of trans rights advocates.

I don't have hard evidence from Canada. I have seen figures from the UK (where GC feminists have not yet been purged from public discourse) showing that referrals of young female people to their Tavistock gender identity clinic have gone from a few dozen per year just a few years ago to a few year to a number in the thousands in 2018 and 2019. I will dig up that information for you.

And I saw something from the US recently suggesting that 22% of teenage girls now identify as LGBTQ. I will try to dig up the source on that as well. 22% is an astounding figure. I'm sure that teens aren't any gayer than they were a few years back, and I'm guessing that most of this explosion of LGBTQ people is in the "Q", and I think most of those identifying as "queer" are probably just "not like other girls" girls. And as I said earlier... who can blame them?  It seems like stereotypes about girls are getting more toxic with each passing year, and I can envision a future where the only female people still willing to identify as "girls" are those trying to get subscribers for their "OnlyFans" pages. I find it depressing.

I have not seen actual educational curriculum materials relating to explaining gender to children.  I've seen a plethora of children's books intended to explore the concept and most seem to once again boil down to stereotypical boy behaviors and stereotypical girl behaviors. A BBC video offered a machine dropping pink brains into pink stick figures with skirts, and blue brains into blue stick figures without skirts, and once in a while the machine put a pink brain in a blue body or vice versa. 

They might mean well, but they're trying to explain complicated ideas to an audience that really only understands gender in trucks-and-unicorns terms.  (and that can be said of many of the parents as well as the children themselves.)


Well, I think we can start by ruling out examples that are obvious bad faith goofs. But the bigger question doesn't have any straightforward answers. I'd suggest identity is a multivalent thing, starting with self-identification and involving a constant and evolving negotiation through social interactions and public policy. How did "homosexual" as an identity go from someone with a criminal mental disorder to one with broad mainstream acceptance? Through a long and painful negotiation with cultural, social and political structures. Which is pretty much what we're seeing through the trans rights debate. If any one of these goofs using The One Joke want to embark on that process, that are welcome to try, but I doubt they have the stomach for it.

Non-binary is description that didn't even exist a few years ago. Neither the phrase nor the practice of rigorously enforcing pronouns existed until recently. But people rebelling against gender constructs has actually been around for a long time and we never needed to put a label on it before. Annie Lennox and Prince and David Bowie never needed to explain their gender to their audience or tell people what pronouns they wanted to be described by.  They simply were. And the same for legions of less famous gender non-conforming individuals who didn't need to tell people what they were, they simply were.  As I do. Don't tell us what you are, go be it. And I just feel that this sudden need for people to tell everyone their identity is largely theatrical... that putting a label on yourself and telling others about it... it's not really about "living your authentic life" so much as it is about validation and seeking acceptance and identifying yourself as part of a culture or movement.

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Offline kimmy

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1516 on: December 23, 2020, 03:10:14 pm »
You absolutely are,

I'm not making fun of gender nonconformity.  I'm making fun of the notion that this is an identity that needs a label.

and it's clear from your continued mangling of the conjugation of the impersonal pronoun thing

I'm pronouning like a pro!  Woke-people insist on the mangling of the language by referring to Tessa as a they... I shall not further mangle it by speaking of them as if they was a multitude rather than an individuals. The slogan is "Respect my pronouns!" not "conjugate my verbs!" 

But generally yes, I wince each time I attempt to describe a single person as a they and feel a general annoyance about it.  I feel weird and awkward about having to refer to Elliot Pages as he and Eddie Izzard as she.  And I feel a some amount of disgust at being required to call a creep like Jessica Yaniv as a woman and lesbian.

that you have a lot of contempt for this person. At least be honest enough to admit that much.

I don't feel contempt for Tessa any more than I feel contempt for any other young person going through a phase. I didn't hate the Goths either but I thought their subculture was silly.

Who are you to say it doesn't? Indeed, is that even the goal here? One obviously can't control how the world reacts to you, but if identifying or dressing a certain way does something for the individual, who are you to say that they're wrong or invalid?

Someone might feel that carrying a rabbit's foot in their pocket gives them luck and if that helps them get through their day, but it doesn't require anybody else to put any faith in the power of a rabbit's foot or humor their faith in their rabbit's foot.

They might feel emboldened by calling herself non-binary and if she does then good for them I guess. I still feel very depressed that people apparently need to disavow being a girl or woman to feel empowered.

As for the fatuous comparison with black people, surely to god you've heard of "passing" no?

"Passing" is a challenging area in trans politics.  Someone who is "passing" will have much different experiences than someone who doesn't.  I recently read an article from a trans man who talked about how great it is to experience male privilege. "People listen when I talk. They stopped taking credit for my work. I got a raise," and so on.  A trans woman who passes might be the target of male harassment or sexual violence. A trans woman who doesn't pass might experience male harassment or violence of a different sort.

In relation to Tessa and non-binary people in general, "passing" isn't a relevant notion. Tessa is not trying to "pass" as anything, just distance themself from traditional femininity.   But as Tessa and other non-binary people move through life... they will discover that they aren't discriminated on based on their relationship with gender stereotypes, but for their biological sex.


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Offline Black Dog

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1517 on: December 23, 2020, 03:17:26 pm »
I'm not sure that there is a theoretical ideal girl in our society anymore. There's lots of cultural influences that push in certain directions, and lots of them are negative stereotypes and pornification and glamorization of certain kinds of femininity.

And I'm not sure it's rigidly enforced. And perhaps ironically the biggest enforcers aren't conservative parents or woke teachers or other well-meaning adults... it's other girls.

Then why is there so much pink princess crap at the toy store? Why do I have to go to the boys' section to buy my daughter dinosaur jammies?

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I'm not sure that's true either. I think most identities are an affirmative statement. "I'm a Canadian Muslim man!" is three affirmative statements.  That statement might imply things that he isn't, as well... one might assume that being Muslim he might have conservative values... but that might well be false and is something that somebody else inferred, not something he explicitly stated.  We might sometimes joke that Canadians define their identity as being Not American, but I think most people believe that saying they are Canadian is an affirmative statement, not a denial of being American.   

the flip side of any affirmative statement is a negative. "I'm a Republican" is also "I'm not a Democrat." And I think if you press a Canadian on what it means to be Canadian, you won't wait long to hear some reference to not being American.

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And... I don't think "non like other girls" is really an identity, anymore than saying you're not American is an identity.

Noone is claiming that as the sum total of their identity are they?

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I don't have hard evidence from Canada. I have seen figures from the UK (where GC feminists have not yet been purged from public discourse) showing that referrals of young female people to their Tavistock gender identity clinic have gone from a few dozen per year just a few years ago to a few year to a number in the thousands in 2018 and 2019. I will dig up that information for you.

But that doesn't have anything to do with your belief that "newfangled people would tell girls that if they're different from some stereotypical girl then they might not really be girls."

I bet there's also a lot more teens seeking treatment for depression and anxiety, but i'm pretty sure no one is out there telling kids to be depressed. More awareness of gender issues and acceptance is probably a big factor. And obviously not all of these will go down the road to transitioning.

Now that being said: one thing you and i would probably agree on is that anyone seeking treatment for body dysmorphia should not be pushed in a specific direction without fully exploring all the factors that might be making them feel the way they are. I think because this is such relatively new territory, we're still figuring out the borders. But i don't think reviving past moral panics is a constructive way to do it.

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And I saw something from the US recently suggesting that 22% of teenage girls now identify as LGBTQ. I will try to dig up the source on that as well. 22% is an astounding figure. I'm sure that teens aren't any gayer than they were a few years back, and I'm guessing that most of this explosion of LGBTQ people is in the "Q", and I think most of those identifying as "queer" are probably just "not like other girls" girls. And as I said earlier... who can blame them? It seems like stereotypes about girls are getting more toxic with each passing year, and I can envision a future where the only female people still willing to identify as "girls" are those trying to get subscribers for their "OnlyFans" pages. I find it depressing.

Or maybe the idea of what a girl is has always been toxic and people are finding other identities to avoid that trap. Self-harm, eating disorders

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I have not seen actual educational curriculum materials relating to explaining gender to children.  I've seen a plethora of children's books intended to explore the concept and most seem to once again boil down to stereotypical boy behaviors and stereotypical girl behaviors. A BBC video offered a machine dropping pink brains into pink stick figures with skirts, and blue brains into blue stick figures without skirts, and once in a while the machine put a pink brain in a blue body or vice versa.

They might mean well, but they're trying to explain complicated ideas to an audience that really only understands gender in trucks-and-unicorns terms.  (and that can be said of many of the parents as well as the children themselves.)

So what's the alternative in your view? To not expose children to those ideas and present them with a rigid gender binary?

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Non-binary is description that didn't even exist a few years ago. Neither the phrase nor the practice of rigorously enforcing pronouns existed until recently. But people rebelling against gender constructs has actually been around for a long time and we never needed to put a label on it before. Annie Lennox and Prince and David Bowie never needed to explain their gender to their audience or tell people what pronouns they wanted to be described by.  They simply were. And the same for legions of less famous gender non-conforming individuals who didn't need to tell people what they were, they simply were.  As I do. Don't tell us what you are, go be it. And I just feel that this sudden need for people to tell everyone their identity is largely theatrical... that putting a label on yourself and telling others about it... it's not really about "living your authentic life" so much as it is about validation and seeking acceptance and identifying yourself as part of a culture or movement.

To which I say: so what? It's annoying and performative at times, but does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? There's bigger fish to fry as far as i'm concerned.



Offline Black Dog

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1518 on: December 23, 2020, 03:22:57 pm »
I'm not making fun of gender nonconformity.  I'm making fun of the notion that this is an identity that needs a label.

I'm pronouning like a pro!  Woke-people insist on the mangling of the language by referring to Tessa as a they... I shall not further mangle it by speaking of them as if they was a multitude rather than an individuals. The slogan is "Respect my pronouns!" not "conjugate my verbs!" 

Doing bad grammar to own the libs.

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But generally yes, I wince each time I attempt to describe a single person as a they and feel a general annoyance about it.  I feel weird and awkward about having to refer to Elliot Pages as he and Eddie Izzard as she.  And I feel a some amount of disgust at being required to call a creep like Jessica Yaniv as a woman and lesbian.

"They" has been a singular impersonal pronoun for a very long time. I bet you unconsciously use it like that a dozen times a day. So what you're really doing here is your own kind of virtue signalling: "look at how un PC and anti-woke I am!"


Offline kimmy

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1519 on: December 23, 2020, 07:54:19 pm »
Then why is there so much pink princess crap at the toy store? Why do I have to go to the boys' section to buy my daughter dinosaur jammies?

I think that if you send your daughter off to school wearing a dinosaur t-shirt and she comes home upset and says she hates dinosaurs wants a princess t-shirt instead, it's probably because other girls made fun of her for wearing something different from what everybody else was wearing. And that's probably why there's so much pink princess crap at the store.  I don't remember things being this bad when I was young, but I do remember peer pressure being the most important thing. When I was in high school and a female engineer came to talk to our class about careers in STEM, afterward in the hall I heard the cool girls saying "what a NERD!" and "as IF!" and I didn't say anything because I didn't want to stick out.

But that doesn't have anything to do with your belief that "newfangled people would tell girls that if they're different from some stereotypical girl then they might not really be girls."

I mean, it must be coming from somewhere. I don't think these little

I bet there's also a lot more teens seeking treatment for depression and anxiety, but i'm pretty sure no one is out there telling kids to be depressed. More awareness of gender issues and acceptance is probably a big factor. And obviously not all of these will go down the road to transitioning.
(...)
Now that being said: one thing you and i would probably agree on is that anyone seeking treatment for body dysmorphia should not be pushed in a specific direction without fully exploring all the factors that might be making them feel the way they are. I think because this is such relatively new territory, we're still figuring out the borders. But i don't think reviving past moral panics is a constructive way to do it.
(...)
Or maybe the idea of what a girl is has always been toxic and people are finding other identities to avoid that trap. Self-harm, eating disorders

I'm glad you mentioned this because I have been meaning to talk about the Keira Bell case in the UK for a while now.  Transition might not actually cure self harm or body image problems or depression or social problems or stop bullying or any of the other things people think it might do for them. For some kids gender dysphoria might be the root of all their problems, but it is sometimes a symptom of deeper problems.  Sometimes it traces back to sexual trauma, for example.

I mentioned her earlier in the thread and earlier this month she won her case.  Bell's claim was that they failed to adequately assess what kind of heathcare she actually needed and led her down a path towards medical transition at a stage of her life when she was too young to provide informed consent to the treatment being proposed.  She feels in hindsight that what she needed was therapy, not hormones and a double mastectomy.   She feels that a plethora of online information made transition seem like like a panacea for all the things that seemed wrong with her life... and when she discovered that medical transition wasn't a magical cure-all, she had already experienced irreversible changes to her body. The ruling in the case agreed with Bell: they felt that children under 16 aren't likely capable of giving informed consent to a permanent, life-altering course of action.  This seems like common sense to me... we don't let kids get married or consent to sex either.

In November, slipping under the radar during the furor surrounding the US election, Canada's parliament agreed in principle to a ban on conversion therapy. Agreement was almost unanimous across all parties,  with only a few cranks like Derek Sloan objecting.

But as this works through the committees and the senate, I hope that some thought is given to the Keira Bell story. If a ban on conversion therapy means an affirmation-only approach to young people wanting medical transition, we will create Keira Bell cases of our own.   Some doctors have already talked of being leery about being accused of transphobia if they question a patient's desire for transition. A ban on conversion therapy, if implemented poorly, could put a chill on the kind of therapy that Bell should have received when she first went to Tavistock.  If we are not careful, we might make it difficult or dangerous for doctors to take a deep dive into a patient's problems before supporting transition.  If we aren't careful about how this is done, we might cause doctors to just shrug their shoulders and write a prescription for hormones.


So what's the alternative in your view? To not expose children to those ideas and present them with a rigid gender binary?

I think that's a false dichotomy.  If there's one thing you should have figured out by now it's that I don't believe in a gender binary at all.

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Offline kimmy

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1520 on: December 23, 2020, 08:48:14 pm »
Doing bad grammar to own the libs.

"They" has been a singular impersonal pronoun for a very long time. I bet you unconsciously use it like that a dozen times a day. So what you're really doing here is your own kind of virtue signalling: "look at how un PC and anti-woke I am!"

If it's a choice between doing bad grammar to pwn the libs or doing bad grammar to appease the libs, I'll take the former. I'm so fricken done with the wokies and their attempts to police everything.   Remember a little while back when all the Polish Women's Strike was big news and progressives wanted to express their support, but they couldn't use the word women becase #NotAllWomenHaveUteri? So we had all these woke people putting #IStandWithPolishPeople on their Twitter profiles.  "I Stand With Polish People"? What the fizzityuck is that supposed to mean? You're into garlic sausage?  When you're policing your own language to the extent that you're not even capable of stating what cause you're supporting, I see that as a problem.


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Offline Black Dog

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1521 on: December 24, 2020, 06:28:47 pm »
I think that if you send your daughter off to school wearing a dinosaur t-shirt and she comes home upset and says she hates dinosaurs wants a princess t-shirt instead, it's probably because other girls made fun of her for wearing something different from what everybody else was wearing. And that's probably why there's so much pink princess crap at the store.  I don't remember things being this bad when I was young, but I do remember peer pressure being the most important thing. When I was in high school and a female engineer came to talk to our class about careers in STEM, afterward in the hall I heard the cool girls saying "what a NERD!" and "as IF!" and I didn't say anything because I didn't want to stick out.

Huh I wonder where they get that from.

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I think that's a false dichotomy.  If there's one thing you should have figured out by now it's that I don't believe in a gender binary at all.

You didn't answer the question tho.

If it's a choice between doing bad grammar to pwn the libs or doing bad grammar to appease the libs, I'll take the former.

Using they as an impersonal pronoun is not bad grammar. If someone at work asks you "hey have you seen Bob?" And you reply "yeah they went on break." are you doing a wokesm?

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Im so fricken done with the wokies and their attempts to police everything.   Remember a little while back when all the Polish Women's Strike was big news and progressives wanted to express their support, but they couldn't use the word women becase #NotAllWomenHaveUteri? So we had all these woke people putting #IStandWithPolishPeople on their Twitter profiles.  "I Stand With Polish People"? What the fizzityuck is that supposed to mean? You're into garlic sausage?  When you're policing your own language to the extent that you're not even capable of stating what cause you're supporting, I see that as a problem.

Yeah it seems from this example and your strident defense of shitty grammar that spending too much time immersed on either side of this is like sticking your brain into a a gem polisher until it's round and perfectly smooth.

Offline kimmy

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1522 on: January 03, 2021, 07:05:39 pm »
Huh I wonder where they get that from.


I don't know where it has come from. I think things are worse now than when I was younger, but I'm not a parent and I don't have kids so maybe I'm not getting the whole picture.

You didn't answer the question tho.

How about NOT exposing children to debunked, harmful "pink brain/blue brain" bullshit and also NOT presenting a rigid gender binary?   How about fighting the idea that careers and sports and activities and fields of knowledge are inherently gendered?  That used to be what feminists wanted.  When did that go out of style?

Using they as an impersonal pronoun is not bad grammar. If someone at work asks you "hey have you seen Bob?" And you reply "yeah they went on break." are you doing a wokesm?

How many of Bob are there?

Yeah it seems from this example and your strident defense of shitty grammar that spending too much time immersed on either side of this is like sticking your brain into a a gem polisher until it's round and perfectly smooth.

Ah of course. You and the Enlightened Centrists are the ones willing to be reasonable.  Except that the Enlightened Centrists are afraid to voice an opinion for fear of being scolded by their woke friends.  So the wokies are the ones charting the course on this, and anybody who questions what's going on is portrayed as a TERF or a religious kook or an alt-right hatemonger or some other easily vilified stereotype.



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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1523 on: January 03, 2021, 07:11:37 pm »


I don't know where it has come from. I think things are worse now than when I was younger, but I'm not a parent and I don't have kids so maybe I'm not getting the whole picture.

How about NOT exposing children to debunked, harmful "pink brain/blue brain" bullshit and also NOT presenting a rigid gender binary?   How about fighting the idea that careers and sports and activities and fields of knowledge are inherently gendered?  That used to be what feminists wanted.  When did that go out of style?

How many of Bob are there?

Ah of course. You and the Enlightened Centrists are the ones willing to be reasonable.  Except that the Enlightened Centrists are afraid to voice an opinion for fear of being scolded by their woke friends.  So the wokies are the ones charting the course on this, and anybody who questions what's going on is portrayed as a TERF or a religious kook or an alt-right hatemonger or some other easily vilified stereotype.



 -k
Yep.  See J. K. Rowling.

Offline kimmy

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1524 on: January 03, 2021, 08:24:56 pm »
Doing bad grammar to own the libs.

"They" has been a singular impersonal pronoun for a very long time. I bet you unconsciously use it like that a dozen times a day. So what you're really doing here is your own kind of virtue signalling: "look at how un PC and anti-woke I am!"

Isn't all of this basically about virtue signalling? Is there any other reason for a person who lives the entirety of her life as a cisgender heterosexual woman to write an article explaining that she's actually a pansexual they/them person?  This isn't a statement about their identity or their life or their reality. It's a statement about their politics.  Ditto Tessa, ditto for a host of others who are now identifying as "queer" or "non-binary" or "pansexual" despite not actually being any of those things.  They're not expressing their membership in the LGBTQ2SIAAetc community, they're expressing their allegiance to wokism.

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Offline Black Dog

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1525 on: January 03, 2021, 10:39:00 pm »
I don't know where it has come from. I think things are worse now than when I was younger, but I'm not a parent and I don't have kids so maybe I'm not getting the whole picture.

Are you kidding me? How can you be so invested in this topic and so clueless on this piece?

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How about NOT exposing children to debunked, harmful "pink brain/blue brain" bullshit and also NOT presenting a rigid gender binary?   How about fighting the idea that careers and sports and activities and fields of knowledge are inherently gendered? That used to be what feminists wanted.  When did that go out of style?

"I don't want people to adhere to gender binaries. But if you say you don't you're just pandering to wokeism and I will make fun of you for it."-You, basically.

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How many of Bob are there?

Are you seriously going to sit here and pretend you've never used "they" as a singular pronoun? Because I would have to call bullshit on that.

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Ah of course. You and the Enlightened Centrists are the ones willing to be reasonable.  Except that the Enlightened Centrists are afraid to voice an opinion for fear of being scolded by their woke friends.  So the wokies are the ones charting the course on this, and anybody who questions what's going on is portrayed as a TERF or a religious kook or an alt-right hatemonger or some other easily vilified stereotype.

Yeah when gendercrits use literally the same moral panic stuff I saw the religious right use on gay people 25 years ago ("they're trying to brainwash kids into their deviant lifestyles!")and literally align with right wing kooks to oppose trans rights then what do you expect?

Isn't all of this basically about virtue signalling? Is there any other reason for a person who lives the entirety of her life as a cisgender heterosexual woman to write an article explaining that she's actually a pansexual they/them person?  This isn't a statement about their identity or their life or their reality. It's a statement about their politics.  Ditto Tessa, ditto for a host of others who are now identifying as "queer" or "non-binary" or "pansexual" despite not actually being any of those things.  They're not expressing their membership in the LGBTQ2SIAAetc community, they're expressing their allegiance to wokism.


So to what what does your butchery of the English language express your allegiance? Because if you think it's logic and common sense and rationality, it's not working.

Offline kimmy

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1526 on: January 05, 2021, 10:29:07 am »
Are you kidding me? How can you be so invested in this topic and so clueless on this piece?

Smart people have been working on this question for a long time, and haven't arrived at any firm answers. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

"I don't want people to adhere to gender binaries. But if you say you don't you're just pandering to wokeism and I will make fun of you for it."-You, basically.

People saying "women be like this, but I be like that, so I'm not a woman" doesn't actually "smash gender binaries" the way people seem to think it does. 

The gender-people have gone on "a quest to find a new definition of woman that doesn't reduce women to their body parts"... and arrived at a definition of woman built around gender stereotypes.  This is not progress, despite what they would tell you.  It's the opposite of what generations of women fought for.

Yeah when gendercrits use literally the same moral panic stuff I saw the religious right use on gay people 25 years ago ("they're trying to brainwash kids into their deviant lifestyles!")and literally align with right wing kooks to oppose trans rights then what do you expect?

That's not true.  Most gender-critical feminists are very left-wing, actually.  A lot of them are old-school left-wing feminists who are now just trying to figure out how "feminism" turned into a generic feel-good movement devoted to every noble cause except for actually helping women.

When you say "oppose trans rights" please be more specific about what rights you are talking about.    A lot of people go around saying "TERFs oppose trans rights" as if they think people don't think trans people should be allowed to vote or go out in public or something.  That's not the case at all.  The "TERFs" generally support most trans rights, except to the point that they impact on women's rights.

I believe some conservative religious group is funding Selina Soule's lawsuit against Connecticut.  Feminists might not agree with that group about much, but keeping men out of women's sports is something they can find common cause, and allies (and money) are hard to come by in this environment.

Ditto p0rn and sex work.  Feminists and religious conservatives might not agree on much, but hating the movement to normalize and glamorize sex work and p0rn is something that they do have in common.

So to what what does your butchery of the English language express your allegiance? Because if you think it's logic and common sense and rationality, it's not working.

I would think that it expresses my allegiance to house "This Stuff Is Bullshit".

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Offline Black Dog

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1527 on: January 05, 2021, 04:48:40 pm »
Smart people have been working on this question for a long time, and haven't arrived at any firm answers. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

I would say it's simply that traditional gender roles are alive and well because, contrary to your assertions, we haven't made sufficient progress as a society in breaking them down in the first place. That should be something feminists should be working on, but a lot of them seem to be more interested in shitting on trans people than anything else these days.

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People saying "women be like this, but I be like that, so I'm not a woman" doesn't actually "smash gender binaries" the way people seem to think it does.

The gender-people have gone on "a quest to find a new definition of woman that doesn't reduce women to their body parts"... and arrived at a definition of woman built around gender stereotypes.  This is not progress, despite what they would tell you.  It's the opposite of what generations of women fought for.

I'd love to see a definition of a magical gender smashing paradigm "generations of women" fought for that doesn't define itself against existing gender roles and stereotypes.

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That's not true.  Most gender-critical feminists are very left-wing, actually.  A lot of them are old-school left-wing feminists who are now just trying to figure out how "feminism" turned into a generic feel-good movement devoted to every noble cause except for actually helping women.

Except they're happy to make common cause with reactionaries against trans rights because, as you say, "allies are hard to come by."

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When you say "oppose trans rights" please be more specific about what rights you are talking about.    A lot of people go around saying "TERFs oppose trans rights" as if they think people don't think trans people should be allowed to vote or go out in public or something.  That's not the case at all.  The "TERFs" generally support most trans rights, except to the point that they impact on women's rights.

The reason people think you guys don't support trans people's rights is because you never seem to give a **** about trans people and their safety. Take the bathroom thing: so you want people to use the bathroom's that correspond with their biological sex at birth because men are horrible predators (nevermind that there's nothing stopping any man from entering a woman's bathroom with ill-intent), which is far more likely to result in transwomen's safety being compromised. Same with the prison thing you like to bring up which ignores the fact that trans people are far more likely to be victims of assault in such environments than perpetrators. But I've yet to see anything in Quilette about that.

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I would think that it expresses my allegiance to house "This Stuff Is Bullshit".

Proper grammar is bullshit?

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Offline kimmy

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1528 on: January 06, 2021, 12:56:28 am »
I would say it's simply that traditional gender roles are alive and well because, contrary to your assertions, we haven't made sufficient progress as a society in breaking them down in the first place.

So you're saying that the reason that we haven't made progress in breaking down traditional gender roles is that we haven't made progress in breaking down traditional gender roles?

Wow. Mind blown. I'm going to need some time to absorb that.

That should be something feminists should be working on, but a lot of them seem to be more interested in shitting on trans people than anything else these days.

That might be your perception of what gender critical feminists are about, but that's a perception formed from biased hearsay, not first-hand exposure.

I'd love to see a definition of a magical gender smashing paradigm "generations of women" fought for that doesn't define itself against existing gender roles and stereotypes.

Feminism used to fight against gender roles and the notion that things were inherently "for boys/men" or "for women/girls".  The goal used to be to do with that kind of thinking, not create new labels and categories of gender.  If you want to argue that eliminating gender roles is still defining relative to existing gender roles, you should also be prepared to explain why "off" should be considered a radio station.

Except they're happy to make common cause with reactionaries against trans rights because, as you say, "allies are hard to come by."

This is a guilt-by-association type argument. It's actually pretty low-brow to suggest that people from different political viewpoints shouldn't cooperate to promote causes of mutual interest.   

I suspect that being able to only associate with people who agree with all of your views is a luxury that is only available to very mainstream people.     Barack Obama recently said something about this notion of an ideological purity test-- "You should get over that quickly."

When Jessica Yaniv was filing HRC complaints against those beauticians who wouldn't shave her nut-sack, one of those reactionary groups was the only legal representation willing to take their case, and they took it pro bono.  I don't especially like that it was a Bible-thumper group that was the hero of that story, but I'm very glad that somebody did stand up for those women because it could have been a travesty otherwise.

The reason people think you guys don't support trans people's rights is because you never seem to give a **** about trans people and their safety.

That argument works both ways. We never hear progressive politicians and trans activists address concerns about women's rights and safety when they talk about putting trans-women in women's prisons and women's locker rooms and women's sports. By your argument I guess that means that progressive politicians and trans activists just don't give a **** about women's rights and safety.

There are countless mainstream voices talking about the safety and well-being of trans people, but precious few willing to even acknowledge, let alone address, concerns over women's rights and safety. Why is that?

And, when women propose alternative solutions (ie, separate accommodations for trans people) it turns out that those propositions aren't acceptable to trans advocates because they're not "validating" for trans women. 

Take the bathroom thing: so you want people to use the bathroom's that correspond with their biological sex at birth because men are horrible predators (nevermind that there's nothing stopping any man from entering a woman's bathroom with ill-intent), which is far more likely to result in transwomen's safety being compromised.

Not all men are horrible predators, obviously. Nobody is claiming that.  And nobody is claiming all trans women are horrible predators either.  That's a strawman that trans activists keep trotting out, but that's not an argument that any serious person is actually presenting.   On the other hand, we know that there are predators that do exist, and that they will (and already have) taken advantage of on-demand gender self-ID. 

I addressed the bathroom thing in a post a few pages back, but I'll repeat those thoughts here:

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if the bathroom is full, nothing bad will happen. And if it's empty then it's no different from being in any other empty room. But if there's one person in there, especially a vulnerable person, then who knows what might happen.  The phrase "crime of opportunity" exists for a reason.    To flip that argument on its head: if nothing could go wrong in a public washroom, why are transwomen afraid of using the men's room?

And I have to point out that implicit in the Reddit poster's thinking is that unless some sort of physical assault occurs, no harm has been done. The University of Toronto experimenting with unisex washrooms at their dorms a few years ago and surprise, found male students trying to record female students showering. BUT HEY, nobody got assaulted!  A school in England changed their washrooms to unisex last year, and surprise, male students were trying to listen at the doors, peek through the cracks or over the the barriers, and even install recording devices. All the female students in the school ended up lining up to use the lone single-sex washroom left at the school BUT HEY, nobody got assaulted!

It bothers me that women's feelings at present have no value and are so casually dismissed.  Don't feel comfortable showering with an erect **** pointed at you? You'll just have to overcome your discomfort. Your expectations of dignity and privacy no longer have any value.

And on a personal note, I disagree with the claim that "Bathrooms are the Rome of anti-trans arguments".  A few short years ago I was all on board the trans rights train, back when I thought it was "we just need a place to pee".  I was 100% supportive back when it was about fighting against "bathroom bills".   There have been a lot of things that have gotten me off the train since then, but it wasn't bathrooms.

Same with the prison thing you like to bring up which ignores the fact that trans people are far more likely to be victims of assault in such environments than perpetrators. But I've yet to see anything in Quilette about that.

Earlier in the thread we talked about the UK incident where a male rapist discovered that he is actually a woman, and prison officials moved him to a women's prison where, surprise, he proceeded to commit sex attacks on female prisoners.  And people here were stunned, like "wow, how could anybody be that catastrophically stupid? How could anybody with a brain in their head have thought that was a good idea?"   And it turns out the same thing is happening in Canada and the US too. So stupidity is contagious, apparently.

Proper grammar is bullshit?

They/them is bullshit. Fake pronouns like xe/xir are bullshit. Referring to people as menstruators or uterus-havers or human milk feeders is bullshit.  All this stuff is bullshit.  If I have to go along with this ****, I am going to be as miserable as possible about it, and hope that it is contagious.

 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City
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Offline Black Dog

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Re: Gender Culture
« Reply #1529 on: January 06, 2021, 10:32:37 am »
So you're saying that the reason that we haven't made progress in breaking down traditional gender roles is that we haven't made progress in breaking down traditional gender roles?

Wow. Mind blown. I'm going to need some time to absorb that.

No we failed to make progress because feminists today are either GirlBoss capitalist representational feminists or frothing at the mouth genital inspectors. They quit the field.

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That might be your perception of what gender critical feminists are about, but that's a perception formed from biased hearsay, not first-hand exposure.

God I wish.

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Feminism used to fight against gender roles and the notion that things were inherently "for boys/men" or "for women/girls".  The goal used to be to do with that kind of thinking, not create new labels and categories of gender.  If you want to argue that eliminating gender roles is still defining relative to existing gender roles, you should also be prepared to explain why "off" should be considered a radio station.

Expanding the category of gender beyond A/B seems like a pretty effective way of disrupting the gender binary.

Also you seem to taking several different and distinct concepts- gender identity, gender roles and gender expression- and mashing them together.

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This is a guilt-by-association type argument. It's actually pretty low-brow to suggest that people from different political viewpoints shouldn't cooperate to promote causes of mutual interest.   

I guess the question of why this is an area of mutual interest between genital inspectors and crazed right wing freaks has simply never crossed your mind.

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I suspect that being able to only associate with people who agree with all of your views is a luxury that is only available to very mainstream people.     

There's a difference-a big one!-between associating with people who don't agree with all your goals and associating with people whose values are predominately antithetical to those you claim to espouse.

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Barack Obama recently said something about this notion of an ideological purity test-- "You should get over that quickly."

The Barack the Bomber has things to say about purity tests lol.

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That argument works both ways. We never hear progressive politicians and trans activists address concerns about women's rights and safety when they talk about putting trans-women in women's prisons and women's locker rooms and women's sports. By your argument I guess that means that progressive politicians and trans activists just don't give a **** about women's rights and safety.

There are countless mainstream voices talking about the safety and well-being of trans people, but precious few willing to even acknowledge, let alone address, concerns over women's rights and safety. Why is that?

Because the premise that transwomen are a grave threat to the safety and well-being of ciswomen is unproven. Again, take the transwomen in women's prisons thing: the number of sexual assaults committed by transwomen is a small fraction of the assaults that occur, yet your big concern is around that small percentage and not the overall problem of sexual assaults in prisons. Meanwhile, transwomen in men's prisons are assaulted on a regular basis and you say nothing.

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And, when women propose alternative solutions (ie, separate accommodations for trans people) it turns out that those propositions aren't acceptable to trans advocates because they're not "validating" for trans women.

So you want them to be equal, just...separate?

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Not all men are horrible predators, obviously. Nobody is claiming that.  And nobody is claiming all trans women are horrible predators either.  That's a strawman that trans activists keep trotting out, but that's not an argument that any serious person is actually presenting. On the other hand, we know that there are predators that do exist, and that they will (and already have) taken advantage of on-demand gender self-ID.

So prove that there's an elevated safety risk to women by allowing trans people to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. Don't just do the concern troll "just asking questions" bullshit. Put some data out there.

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And I have to point out that implicit in the Reddit poster's thinking is that unless some sort of physical assault occurs, no harm has been done. The University of Toronto experimenting with unisex washrooms at their dorms a few years ago and surprise, found male students trying to record female students showering. BUT HEY, nobody got assaulted!  A school in England changed their washrooms to unisex last year, and surprise, male students were trying to listen at the doors, peek through the cracks or over the the barriers, and even install recording devices. All the female students in the school ended up lining up to use the lone single-sex washroom left at the school BUT HEY, nobody got assaulted!

What's odd to me about these anecdotes is they don't actually speak to the issue of trans people to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. But you're using it to muddy the waters to say "see, look how those men behave in the bathroom with women! See how putting men in the bathroom with women is a bad idea!"

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Earlier in the thread we talked about the UK incident where a male rapist discovered that he is actually a woman, and prison officials moved him to a women's prison where, surprise, he proceeded to commit sex attacks on female prisoners.  And people here were stunned, like "wow, how could anybody be that catastrophically stupid? How could anybody with a brain in their head have thought that was a good idea?"   And it turns out the same thing is happening in Canada and the US too. So stupidity is contagious, apparently.

I'm glad the issue of sexual assault in women's prisons is such an important one to you, can you point me to all your posts on the subject that don't involve transpeople?

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They/them is bullshit. Fake pronouns like xe/xir are bullshit. Referring to people as menstruators or uterus-havers or human milk feeders is bullshit.  All this stuff is bullshit.  If I have to go along with this ****, I am going to be as miserable as possible about it, and hope that it is contagious.

Of course this stuff is stupid, it's also completely niche **** that has no effect on anyone whatsoever and yet its driving you nuts, it's such a bizarre fixation. 
« Last Edit: January 11, 2021, 03:08:15 pm by Black Dog »
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