you started this shit lol what do you expect? a straight answer? politics and stuff like this arent always black and white
There's only 2 genders: Male and Female. Transgender isn't a gender, it's a transition between. I disagree with the scientific plausibility of transgenderism and believe it's a social construct (GENDER IS NOT), but that's just me. As long as it doesn't harm anybody, I see it as any other mental illness and if switching is what people say is the best treatment, then fine by me. I don't agree with it, but it's not my place. I've met lots of nice trans people (like Echo) that are defined by way more than the really trivial fact that they're trans and I won't judge them for anything other than what I use to judge other people: who they are as a person (also, I don't see mental illness as an inherently bad thing. It's just a part of people that is a lot more common than people think and we just all gotta learn to live with it, whether it's in a friend/family member or it's in ourselves). The same applies to identifying as otherkin or whatnot. Fine. Be my guest. You're a towel. Now you're a wolf. Just don't force it on people. You have no reason to be offended when people don't guess you're rainbow sparkles from the very first glance. This also applies to the law. There are movements to change your ID to match your make-believe gender, or your transitional gender. These should be struck down because they are dangerous. Your ID is there so if you get into something nasty like a car wreck and you are not able to speak or think or maintain consciousness, doctors can know how to treat you and police can know who you are. Your physical appearance doesn't change what's inside, and men and women require different prescriptions and different dosage levels for the same problems. This could end up being fatal and cost doctors either extra time checking your junk or just the patient in general because medical staff don't always think to check someone's junk when they're in the emergency room. There, those are my opinions on the matter.
I mean everyone here has always accepted most of everything as far as I've seen, big thing is, people here have called me a guy for 3 years now and you dont hear me complaining. The way you look and sound is literally natures only way of physically making us distinguishable so if you look like a girl and I call you a girl when you want to be a man I can't read your mind and know tho you have tits and a pretty face that you want to be a Chad -=Edit to Elaborate=- No I'm not transgender, I am what is known as gender fluid, my actions and attitude and what I more identify as are based on mood, how I feel in my own body etc, and it changes, but with that I dont plague the people around me with if on the off chance that today I feel like a girl that if they call me Him/He/His Im going to try and have an autistic screeching world record battle.
Again, considerable portions of this are scientifically incorrect (see my earlier statement). Whilst in many cases transgenderism is, as you say, a social construct (key note to this - this doesn't mean it's not scientific, it means it's not biological), in a high proportion of cases it is an actual biological issue; whether hormonal imbalances, rarer 'genders' (see my prior post) or various other genetic/biological/developmental faults, varying from technically treatable conditions (whether said treatment is ethical is another matter) such as hormonal issues, to far more complex issues such as, quite literally not having the right organs for your biological gender (This is a thing.) Moving onto identifying as a wolf/washing machine/potato... Not gonna lie you're pretty much accurate regarding it being a mental health issue. Genderfluid (or whatever it's called) however I have no idea on what the current scientific consensus is (it is, after all, a fairly new concept, where science is concerned), however there's bound to be biological reasons behind a significant percentage of cases, though again, likely not all due to social pressures. Regarding the last part in particular - actually gender is basically irrelevant for treatment. Size and weight is what determines nearly all prescriptions and dosages (though technically medicines are also avoided which have abnormally high levels of the opposite gender's key hormones, for obvious reasons), a 6' 4, 300 lb woman is going to receive the exact same emergency treatment and medication as a 6'4 300 lb man, in emergency situations stupid shit like avoiding hormones are also likely to go out of the window. As someone who is borderline morbidly underweight, if you gave me the level of anesthetic that you would give to an 'average sized' 28 year old male, you would kill me; dosages for me tend to be more towards female dosages because, well, my weight is bad. Conversely, if you gave a large female anesthetic capable of knocking me out, they'd probably only partially if at all get effected by the drugs. Also for the sake of comedy - I'm pretty sure even if your ID card said "Toaster on Tuesdays" as your gender, they're not going to shove a plug up your backside and turn it on in an attempt at treating you. Doctors do actually know what they're doing.
Uh. That's not quite true, but the application it's being used in this thread so far... by almost everyone.. is incorrect. Science is an interesting thing.. it's why I decided to become a scientist. It never really gets boring to me. The thing about science though is that it doesn't really fit in these type of discussions. Science is pretty objective, in fact, in the best cases it's purely objective. Science doesn't consider religion. It doesn't consider opinions, it doesn't consider societal norms. Do we talk about sex? Absolutely. It has quite a bit of implications but not really in the way it's being put fourth in this thread. So, as an actual biologist who has taken I have no idea how many courses involving genetics, seen countless of other scientists discuss genetics, and oh. I actually have a biology degree I can speak about this a bit. When we talk about sex in science and genetics we're not really classifying "male" and "female" in the same sense that's being expressed in this thread by most. In fact- in some organisms we decide to use (+) and (-) to call sex, which, is actually probably a more accurate descriptor. In humans, it's pretty simple. We only have male and female. In biology, the only thing this means is that if you're male (XY), you have a Y chromosome. If you do not have a Y chromosome, you're female (XX). There are other variations of this as I think is what Bravo is getting at, such as only 1 X, (XO), or XXY, etc. But even in these cases it's still a female, without a second X chromosome, or a male, with an extra X, etc. Now- the reason why science doesn't fit in this discussion is because, we're talking about two different things here. In science, it's just a classification on whether something as this specific chromosome or not. That's why I mentioned earlier that male and female are not really great descriptors of this- especially since what we consider to be the "sex chromosomes" have more than two configurations, that actually have quite a bit of effects physiologically. I much prefer the +/- classifications that we use in other organisms. What the discussion here is talking about is how we classify gender as a culture. Which is a difficult discussion in itself when you're talking with such a large, diverse community where people are coming in from different cultures. Regardless, science doesn't really fit in to this discussion unless you're limiting yourself to just the scientific classifications of sexes- which is actually a little bit flawed in itself. We just want to know if something has a Y chromosome or not. We don't really care about any of the other influences how you decide to characterize that.
That's kinda the point though Helix, I wasn't making a statement either way on the actual comments, I'm pointing out that claiming scientific evidence to the contrary of there being more than two genders is simply wrong. I'm not making an argument on the social side of things, purely pointing out that on a genetics level (and thus, biologically) there are more than two genders - whether via the various XY chromosome disorders, chimerism or other causes of being a non-binary gender. I know full well that people are talking from a social viewpoint, but when people try to use the science to claim something, they can be challenged on a scientific level - which is what I did. Making incorrect claims like; " instead its a biological trait that simply describes the number of x and y chromozomes an individual has" and "I disagree with the scientific plausibility of transgenderism" can therefore out and out be countered by said science. All I did was point out that they are, basically, wrong. Which your post though more elaborated than mine, is still essentially agreeing with me even if you say you're disagreeing (also, didn't know XO was a thing in humans, the more you know).
I think we're 1/2 on the same page. There are two sexes genetically. They can present themselves in different ways, but still it's either Has a Y, or doesn't have a Y. May have a little extra, or may be missing some. But it's either Y or no Y. But yeah- I agree. Scientific classifications are for just that- scientific classifications. If you're ignoring the social and cognitive aspect of it then you're ignoring a large portion of what science doesn't even consider, and isn't meant to consider.
You don't need a degree in biology to discuss the basics of genetics and genetic disorders. Also yes, I dont think everyone here is aware of the difference in sex and gender, but saying sex should define your gender is, in my opinion, a fair argument.
Why? One is a social construct that can have wildly different connotations from culture to culture. The other is more or less an absolute. Now, the biochemistry present in men and women can go a long way in determining certain behaviors common to each sex, but that is only one part of the discussion. Bio chemistry can vary wildly from person to person, and gender dysphoria is a recognized and diagnosed mental disorder (that doesn't imply a negative connotation, just a variance in the norm). A definition of gender is "the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones)." Using this definition, we can say with some certainty that arguing about whether or not someone conforms to the binary gender roles is an exercise in futility. If a subculture exists that gives definition to a new gender classification, and someone identifies with those sets of behaviors and norms, then we can say that their gender identity is valid. That being said, I don't think people can or should be blamed for at least initially assuming a gender. Humans tend to categorize everything passively into groups, most of the time we do this without so much as a thought. That is normal. But once someone respectfully informs you that they prefer a different pronoun, what does it hurt to comply? You make someone feel more comfortable, and it takes practically zero effort on your part. This feels like it's going on a tad long and I don't want to ramble, but those are my rough thoughts. (Also, I didn't read through this whole mess, so I may end up being a tad redundant.)
I personally believe we should accept 2+ genders into society, It really doesn't do much harm. If people openly say that they don't like to be called He/She, I'll just refer to them as They, yes?
I know about the whole spiel about gender identity and its relation to different cultures, as I've taken a course in cultural anthropology. Its a rather subjective thing, really. If someone from whatever subculture wants to call themselves something then they have the freedom to do so, but seeing as I have nothing to do with whatever subculture that is, I'm not required to refer to you by those titles. What bothers me is people trying to make laws or regulations around these sort of titles like it is some kind of requirement. Its, frankly, very silly.
