You seem to be equivocating on gender and sex (something the list warned you about!). Gender roles are social constructs… so yes, obviously, whatever we do, we will be taking people’s (socially approved) “delusions and hallucinations” at face value. Whether you are delusional in believing that “this bathroom is a special place for men” or “dresses are special clothes for women”, these delusions are socially perpetuated, and change based on society. So it may happen that (to take the programmer list as an example), on Facebook there are 5 (or 50) socially appropriate genders. It may happen that in the PS bathroom there are two appropriate genders. You can see why taking the PS list as equal to the FB list would be suboptimal :-)
Moreover, it is silly to argue that people seeking to change the social order by claiming a third gender are as insane as people that we would commonly define as delusional and hallucinating… So I assume that you are using bombastic language to grab our attention. Is your argument actually that you feel bad about social change, and want us to stop doing it?
That’s because the distinction doesn’t actually exist. In particular, to the extent gender refers to a real concept and not an pure XML tag, it refers to what is commonly called sex.
So it may happen that (to take the programmer list as an example), on Facebook there are 5 (or 50) socially appropriate genders.
Most of them are nothing more than ways for narcissists to signal their special-snowflakeness.
You can see why taking the PS list as equal to the FB list would be suboptimal :-)
Yes, the optimal solution would be for the FB list to match the PS list.
Moreover, it is silly to argue that people seeking to change the social order by claiming a third gender are as insane as people that we would commonly define as delusional and hallucinating
Since you appear to be new here, let me explain the local social norms. Around here people are expected to provide arguments for their positions. In case you’re not aware repeating the opponents possession prefaced with “it is silly to argue” is not an argument.
Since you appear to be new here, let me explain the local social norms. Around here people are expected to provide arguments for their positions.
Okay… People who are seeking to change social norms in general are not usually considered insane in the same way as someone who is making claims that their sensory input is showing them something different from everyone else.
For example, social norms would not allow women to walk topless outside except in exceptional situations, even where it is legal. This is often a problem… for example, even the edge case breastfeeding mothers are marginalized; more generally, bare-chested women as a class are marginalized. Changing this social norm would require changing gender norms. Generally, advocating for this change is acceptable, although not always respectable.
However, I do not think that you really care about gender norms. I think that you are specifically worried that adding further gender categories is a form of pandering to people who want to increase static without increasing signal; that is, the information that someone does not identify as traditionally female does not appear to be useful information to you, and therefore you view this as needless static.
Let me know if I am wrong.
However, if we are looking at domain knowledge as something worth exploring to allow you to interact with other people, as in the examples given for coders, you can see how awareness of this could be very important. After all, many people of non-standard genders feel more strongly about those identities than they do about religion, so you might reasonably view a basic knowledge of these views as equally important as knowing the basics of major religions.
If you are uncomfortable with this, you might simply avoid people who identify with non-standard genders. However, I would suggest that you can more profitably communicate with people of non-standard genders than with people who are hallucinating.… However, my personal sample size of interactions with people who are hallucinating/delusional in a psychological sense is fairly small, so I could be wrong.
For example, social norms would not allow women to walk topless outside except in exceptional situations, even where it is legal. This is often a problem… for example, even the edge case breastfeeding mothers are marginalized;
That can fall under the “exceptional situation” exemption when there is a reasonable reason for them to be breast feeding in public.
more generally, bare-chested women as a class are marginalized.
There’s a very simple solution for them: cover up their breasts. I don’t see why this is a problem.
However, if we are looking at domain knowledge as something worth exploring to allow you to interact with other people, as in the examples given for coders,
That would require that the “domain knowledge” be actual knowledge and not BS.
That’s because the distinction doesn’t actually exist.
Surely it does. One is a classification system based on biology, the other is a cultural template determined by the local culture.
You can argue that they match most of the time, or even that they should match all the time, but in contemporary usage the words “sex” and “gender” clearly have distinct meaning.
There are two things here, if we care to stick to the discussion of edge cases (which is theoretically the point of this thread...)
The first is sex, in which case we should be talking about things like Turner’s syndrome and XYY syndrome; sex is not binary. It is only usually binary.
The second would be coming up with a definition of gender, and seeing if it matches our definition of sex. It is safe to say that 1) the use of ‘gender’ to mean the same as ‘sex’ is within the usual range of common usage, and 2) completely wrong under certain ‘domains’ (sociology, anthropology, a number of personal vocabularies, etc.).
That’s because the distinction doesn’t actually exist.
This seems to be saying that those domains are making a mistake in making this distinction—something that is hard to defend without knowing something of those domains. This is particularly hard to defend without making very strong definitions, and it is very hard to get strong definitions that we will agree on.
The first is sex, in which case we should be talking about things like Turner’s syndrome and XYY syndrome
Yes, and nearly all those cases do in fact cluster with one of the two “standard” genders. And the very rare exception to this are generally not the people who are claiming to be “transsexual”.
The second would be coming up with a definition of gender, and seeing if it matches our definition of sex.
You can come up with whatever definition you want, I don’t see why I should are about IffThen!gender.
That’s because the distinction doesn’t actually exist. In particular, to the extent gender refers to a real concept and not an pure XML tag, it refers to what is commonly called sex.
This is an interesting claim. Things that are often lumped into ‘gender’ includes things like dress, pronouns, and bathrooms, and these things are very important to people. Maybe they shouldn’t be, but they are.
You are very unclear as to what you are suggesting. One obvious interpretation is that caring if you wear a dress or a tie is the same as hallucinating, and we should stop doing it. This is an interesting claim… and potentially a very useful one. I would support this. I would also support unisex bathrooms and gender neutral pronouns. So we might not disagree at all.
But it is also possible to interpret your claim as saying that non-standard genders are less valid than standard ones, even when the standard ones are arbitrary or harmful. This is harder to defend—in fact, no one defends this as a general theory except extreme moral relativists (the claim that ‘woman are not worthy to vote’ is generally not held to be true based on the culture you are in, but to have a higher reasoning behind arguments for and against; in case it is not obvious, voting was assigned as a gender role; a voting woman would be outside of either standard gender for much of our history). Obviously this is an extreme example, but you can see that gender matters; if in your life you find that the only reason that gender matters is whether or not your bathroom has an urinal or not, this is very good for you.
(It is also possible that you believe that we currently have developed the perfect gender roles, and any change would be a worsening of conditions. This is sufficiently different from my own view that I am not willing to spend my time debating it unless you give me some sort of compelling evidence up front.)
I think that this is sufficient for you to see why I claim that you are equivocating on gender and sex. I’m fairly certain that what you actually want to claim is something much less strong, simply that using made-up pronouns and complaining about what bathroom you are assigned is annoying at best, and perhaps a sign of a personality disorder. In this case, you might want a very different list than the one provided.
Others have already mentioned the benefits of commercial sites pandering to their clients, so I needn’t elaborate.
But it is also possible to interpret your claim as saying that non-standard genders are less valid than standard ones
Well they are, although “less valid” is a rather strong understatement.
‘woman are not worthy to vote’
You do realize that that’s a moral claim. In order to evaluate it in a utilitarian framework, one could look at, for example, whether women having the vote leads to better or worse policy outcomes. I think this is certainly a debatable position either way and certainly is far from obvious. Heck it might even depend on other properties of the society.
I’m fairly certain that what you actually want to claim is something much less strong
In other words, my position is outside the range of positions you’re used to encountering, and you’re desperately hoping I back-peddle so you don’t have to think of arguments against it, in the process have to question the axioms of your philosophy.
True—but in the context of the top post, you can and should be looking at cases where gender roles are non-traditional. After all, this is a post about edge cases and overgeneralized beliefs. Gender roles are an excellent example of arbitrary rules being over applied. This applies both to cases when we are dealing with other members of our own culture, and with members of other cultures.
You seem to be equivocating on gender and sex (something the list warned you about!). Gender roles are social constructs… so yes, obviously, whatever we do, we will be taking people’s (socially approved) “delusions and hallucinations” at face value. Whether you are delusional in believing that “this bathroom is a special place for men” or “dresses are special clothes for women”, these delusions are socially perpetuated, and change based on society. So it may happen that (to take the programmer list as an example), on Facebook there are 5 (or 50) socially appropriate genders. It may happen that in the PS bathroom there are two appropriate genders. You can see why taking the PS list as equal to the FB list would be suboptimal :-)
Moreover, it is silly to argue that people seeking to change the social order by claiming a third gender are as insane as people that we would commonly define as delusional and hallucinating… So I assume that you are using bombastic language to grab our attention. Is your argument actually that you feel bad about social change, and want us to stop doing it?
That’s because the distinction doesn’t actually exist. In particular, to the extent gender refers to a real concept and not an pure XML tag, it refers to what is commonly called sex.
Most of them are nothing more than ways for narcissists to signal their special-snowflakeness.
Yes, the optimal solution would be for the FB list to match the PS list.
Since you appear to be new here, let me explain the local social norms. Around here people are expected to provide arguments for their positions. In case you’re not aware repeating the opponents possession prefaced with “it is silly to argue” is not an argument.
Okay… People who are seeking to change social norms in general are not usually considered insane in the same way as someone who is making claims that their sensory input is showing them something different from everyone else.
For example, social norms would not allow women to walk topless outside except in exceptional situations, even where it is legal. This is often a problem… for example, even the edge case breastfeeding mothers are marginalized; more generally, bare-chested women as a class are marginalized. Changing this social norm would require changing gender norms. Generally, advocating for this change is acceptable, although not always respectable.
However, I do not think that you really care about gender norms. I think that you are specifically worried that adding further gender categories is a form of pandering to people who want to increase static without increasing signal; that is, the information that someone does not identify as traditionally female does not appear to be useful information to you, and therefore you view this as needless static.
Let me know if I am wrong.
However, if we are looking at domain knowledge as something worth exploring to allow you to interact with other people, as in the examples given for coders, you can see how awareness of this could be very important. After all, many people of non-standard genders feel more strongly about those identities than they do about religion, so you might reasonably view a basic knowledge of these views as equally important as knowing the basics of major religions.
If you are uncomfortable with this, you might simply avoid people who identify with non-standard genders. However, I would suggest that you can more profitably communicate with people of non-standard genders than with people who are hallucinating.… However, my personal sample size of interactions with people who are hallucinating/delusional in a psychological sense is fairly small, so I could be wrong.
That can fall under the “exceptional situation” exemption when there is a reasonable reason for them to be breast feeding in public.
There’s a very simple solution for them: cover up their breasts. I don’t see why this is a problem.
That would require that the “domain knowledge” be actual knowledge and not BS.
Surely it does. One is a classification system based on biology, the other is a cultural template determined by the local culture.
You can argue that they match most of the time, or even that they should match all the time, but in contemporary usage the words “sex” and “gender” clearly have distinct meaning.
There are two things here, if we care to stick to the discussion of edge cases (which is theoretically the point of this thread...)
The first is sex, in which case we should be talking about things like Turner’s syndrome and XYY syndrome; sex is not binary. It is only usually binary.
The second would be coming up with a definition of gender, and seeing if it matches our definition of sex. It is safe to say that 1) the use of ‘gender’ to mean the same as ‘sex’ is within the usual range of common usage, and 2) completely wrong under certain ‘domains’ (sociology, anthropology, a number of personal vocabularies, etc.).
This seems to be saying that those domains are making a mistake in making this distinction—something that is hard to defend without knowing something of those domains. This is particularly hard to defend without making very strong definitions, and it is very hard to get strong definitions that we will agree on.
Yes, and nearly all those cases do in fact cluster with one of the two “standard” genders. And the very rare exception to this are generally not the people who are claiming to be “transsexual”.
You can come up with whatever definition you want, I don’t see why I should are about IffThen!gender.
This is an interesting claim. Things that are often lumped into ‘gender’ includes things like dress, pronouns, and bathrooms, and these things are very important to people. Maybe they shouldn’t be, but they are.
You are very unclear as to what you are suggesting. One obvious interpretation is that caring if you wear a dress or a tie is the same as hallucinating, and we should stop doing it. This is an interesting claim… and potentially a very useful one. I would support this. I would also support unisex bathrooms and gender neutral pronouns. So we might not disagree at all.
But it is also possible to interpret your claim as saying that non-standard genders are less valid than standard ones, even when the standard ones are arbitrary or harmful. This is harder to defend—in fact, no one defends this as a general theory except extreme moral relativists (the claim that ‘woman are not worthy to vote’ is generally not held to be true based on the culture you are in, but to have a higher reasoning behind arguments for and against; in case it is not obvious, voting was assigned as a gender role; a voting woman would be outside of either standard gender for much of our history). Obviously this is an extreme example, but you can see that gender matters; if in your life you find that the only reason that gender matters is whether or not your bathroom has an urinal or not, this is very good for you.
(It is also possible that you believe that we currently have developed the perfect gender roles, and any change would be a worsening of conditions. This is sufficiently different from my own view that I am not willing to spend my time debating it unless you give me some sort of compelling evidence up front.)
I think that this is sufficient for you to see why I claim that you are equivocating on gender and sex. I’m fairly certain that what you actually want to claim is something much less strong, simply that using made-up pronouns and complaining about what bathroom you are assigned is annoying at best, and perhaps a sign of a personality disorder. In this case, you might want a very different list than the one provided.
Others have already mentioned the benefits of commercial sites pandering to their clients, so I needn’t elaborate.
Well they are, although “less valid” is a rather strong understatement.
You do realize that that’s a moral claim. In order to evaluate it in a utilitarian framework, one could look at, for example, whether women having the vote leads to better or worse policy outcomes. I think this is certainly a debatable position either way and certainly is far from obvious. Heck it might even depend on other properties of the society.
In other words, my position is outside the range of positions you’re used to encountering, and you’re desperately hoping I back-peddle so you don’t have to think of arguments against it, in the process have to question the axioms of your philosophy.
Partially. You can’t just ignore the biological basis and declare gender roles to be arbitrary—they are not.
True—but in the context of the top post, you can and should be looking at cases where gender roles are non-traditional. After all, this is a post about edge cases and overgeneralized beliefs. Gender roles are an excellent example of arbitrary rules being over applied. This applies both to cases when we are dealing with other members of our own culture, and with members of other cultures.