So you agree that “gender” as distinct from “sex” doesn’t correspond to anything,
I’m pretty sure that ID cards and human interaction are territory, not map. Please don’t do the “social constructs basically don’t exist” thing, it’s very silly.
The discussion of a hypothetical person who wants to change gender (but nothing else) every five minutes is giving me a vibe similar to when someone asks “how does evolution explain a monkey giving birth to a human?” It doesn’t. That would falsify the model, much like our hypothetical person would falsify the “gender identity” model.
There exists a group of people who explicitly claim to have gender identities that are not stable over time, but this usually includes behaviors beyond requested pronouns.
Of course, if you do observe internal mind state, e.g., by using sufficiently good brain scans or personality tests, you’d like find that most of the people claiming to be “trans” are clustered with their birth gender.
Hey, an empirical disagreement! I think this research has in fact been done, I’ll go digging for it later this evening.
I’m pretty sure that ID cards and human interaction are territory, not map.
So a man getting an ID card with a typo in the gender field makes him female?
The discussion of a hypothetical person who wants to change gender (but nothing else) every five minutes is giving me a vibe similar to when someone asks “how does evolution explain a monkey giving birth to a human?” It doesn’t. That would falsify the model, much like our hypothetical person would falsify the “gender identity” model.
How about not “every five minutes”, but whenever he feels like going to the women’s bathroom to ogle/be generally creepy?
There exists a group of people who explicitly claim to have gender identities that are not stable over time, but this usually includes behaviors beyond requested pronouns.
Well, this fact itself seems like to should falsify gjm’s model. Let’s see what he says about it.
So a man getting an ID card with a typo in the gender field makes him female?
Legally, maybe so, at least until the error is corrected. You’d have to ask a lawyer to be sure.
ID cards are a physical object, which is not determined by biological sex, since as a question of legal fact one can get an ID card of one’s self-identified gender if one jumps through the appropriate hoops, even without sex reassignment surgery. (At least that’s how it works here in California. I have no idea how it works in other states or countries.)
This seems to me a counterexample to the claim that gender, as distinct from sex, doesn’t correspond to anything. Social interaction is another: for example, women are much more likely to ask each other if they want old clothes before giving/throwing them away, and much less likely to get asked to be someone’s Best Man at a wedding.
How about not “every five minutes”, but whenever he feels like going to the women’s bathroom to ogle/be generally creepy?
By far the dominant hypothesis here would be “you’re lying”, but failing that probably yes, gender identities aren’t supposed to be able to work that way.
“Your gender is whatever you say it is” is a social norm, not a factual claim. Saying you’re a woman doesn’t make you a woman. People just don’t generally assert it unless they actually want to be treated as a woman. Creeps, or other people lying for personal gain, seem exceptionally rare—probably because it’s a giant hassle, and the institutions they’d want to take advantage of don’t obey that norm anyway.
If transition ever became socially easy and stigma-free, we probably would need a different anti-creep mechanism.
I agree that genderfluid people might break gjm’s model, although he seems to have some wiggle room as written. Of course, I don’t know if this is a deliberate result of accounting for their existence, or a lucky accident.
Good I’m glad we agree on this. Now, why are you trying to defend positions that rely on denying this claim?
I’m not. I entered this discussion mostly to point out that you were equating “corresponds to social behavior” with “does not correspond to anything”, which is silly.
It’s worse than gender not corresponding to anything. Like in the standard example, it corresponds to multiple things, which don’t necessarily agree.
ETA:
Yes, and creeps, or example, want to be treated as a woman with respect to which bathroom they enter.
Do they? I mean, as a theoretical problem, sure. But to my knowledge this is a vanishingly rare event.
I’m pretty sure that ID cards and human interaction are territory, not map. Please don’t do the “social constructs basically don’t exist” thing, it’s very silly.
The discussion of a hypothetical person who wants to change gender (but nothing else) every five minutes is giving me a vibe similar to when someone asks “how does evolution explain a monkey giving birth to a human?” It doesn’t. That would falsify the model, much like our hypothetical person would falsify the “gender identity” model.
There exists a group of people who explicitly claim to have gender identities that are not stable over time, but this usually includes behaviors beyond requested pronouns.
Hey, an empirical disagreement! I think this research has in fact been done, I’ll go digging for it later this evening.
So a man getting an ID card with a typo in the gender field makes him female?
How about not “every five minutes”, but whenever he feels like going to the women’s bathroom to ogle/be generally creepy?
Well, this fact itself seems like to should falsify gjm’s model. Let’s see what he says about it.
Legally, maybe so, at least until the error is corrected. You’d have to ask a lawyer to be sure.
ID cards are a physical object, which is not determined by biological sex, since as a question of legal fact one can get an ID card of one’s self-identified gender if one jumps through the appropriate hoops, even without sex reassignment surgery. (At least that’s how it works here in California. I have no idea how it works in other states or countries.)
This seems to me a counterexample to the claim that gender, as distinct from sex, doesn’t correspond to anything. Social interaction is another: for example, women are much more likely to ask each other if they want old clothes before giving/throwing them away, and much less likely to get asked to be someone’s Best Man at a wedding.
By far the dominant hypothesis here would be “you’re lying”, but failing that probably yes, gender identities aren’t supposed to be able to work that way.
“Your gender is whatever you say it is” is a social norm, not a factual claim. Saying you’re a woman doesn’t make you a woman. People just don’t generally assert it unless they actually want to be treated as a woman. Creeps, or other people lying for personal gain, seem exceptionally rare—probably because it’s a giant hassle, and the institutions they’d want to take advantage of don’t obey that norm anyway.
If transition ever became socially easy and stigma-free, we probably would need a different anti-creep mechanism.
I agree that genderfluid people might break gjm’s model, although he seems to have some wiggle room as written. Of course, I don’t know if this is a deliberate result of accounting for their existence, or a lucky accident.
Ok, now I officially have no reason to care about Wes_W!gender.
So you agree this social norm has no factual basis to it.
Good I’m glad we agree on this. Now, why are you trying to defend positions that rely on denying this claim?
Yes, and creeps, or example, want to be treated as a woman with respect to which bathroom they enter.
I’m not. I entered this discussion mostly to point out that you were equating “corresponds to social behavior” with “does not correspond to anything”, which is silly.
It’s worse than gender not corresponding to anything. Like in the standard example, it corresponds to multiple things, which don’t necessarily agree.
ETA:
Do they? I mean, as a theoretical problem, sure. But to my knowledge this is a vanishingly rare event.