Do you feel the same way about nicknames? If you call someone by a nickname that they don't like and they let you know they prefer their own name then do you consider it too onerous to defer to them about it?
I think it is more similar to race-blind versus race-conscious policies - along with gender-blind versus gernder-concious.
Is it better to assume that men and women are pretty much the same in academia and each are capable of the same thing? Or is it better to assume that men and women are intrinsically better at different things with certain characteristics.
I think the answer is in the middle but clearly there has been a move in the last five years to say that gender inherently effects your worldview/characteristics while simultaneously saying that men/women should have equal outcomes in all fields. Its not internally consistent.
This is something I think a lot of people misunderstand about [id]-consciousness. Is it better to assume that you as an individual have biases that align/oppose with overarching biases in our society, or is it better to assume that you alone, or society at large, are bias-free? Can we address inequality by treating everybody the same in this moment and ignoring the historical context they exist in, or do observed biases need to be compensated for in some manner?
This is different than whether the gating on biological sex makes sense.
(Note I don't mean strictly mechanical stuff like peeing your name into the snow, I'm talking about things like teachers "not wasting time on helping girls understand math"[1] - because I suspect that teachers not helping girls with math is probably more causal to fewer women in math than their vaginas.
[1] I've personally heard math teachers say this, and heard stories of others saying it too.)
However, what happens if this is completely eliminated and there are still discrepancies in grades, degrees, income? Many would say then that the subject matter is tilted towards men or women and needs to be reformed. Those who argue that position are arguing for gender conscious policy. Which is definitely not the same as gender neutral policy (which was the most popular 15 years ago when I was in school - but things seem to be shifting towards more conscious policy)
I don't care what gender someone calls themselves, and as a nice person I'll try to remember and use it, so long as they don't attempt to get me fired if I get it wrong.
Conflating these two things is precisely why there's a backlash against CRT et al. from otherwise left-leaning individuals.
You're hitting the nail in the head that the problem is with the anti-trans person making a stink about it. That is where the real burden is, and that is who is to blame for the toxic work environment. The bully is the problem, not their target.
Imagine a Mr. Jones who does not agree with the basic premise of gender theory, and believes — say — that transgendered folk are suffering from a mental illness. Mr. Jones has a transgendered colleague with whom he is generally cordial, though not particularly warm. One day, said colleague learns about Mr. Jones opinion, and decides she will assert herself and “call out” Mr. Jones if she is ever offended by his behavior or speech.
One day, Mr. Jones refers passingly to this colleague as ‘he’. For the sake of argument, let us assume this was not meant to be disrespectful, but that this utterance is instead the result of being distracted, and that the colleague has some masculine features. In other words, it was uttered unthinkingly — an honest mistake.
Offended, Mr. Jones’ colleague confronts him publicly and berates him for his behavior. She demands to be called ‘she’, proceeds to shame him on social media, and demands a public apology.
Mr. Jones feels this is an unfair and disproportionate response. Moreover, he now believes her demands to be retaliatory. He firmly but politely refuses. The conflict is referred to HR, and Mr. Jones is ordered to use his colleague’s preferred pronoun. Mr. Jones’ ethics preclude compelled speech. He refuses and is fired.
My questions for you are simple:
1. Do you think it is appropriate that Mr. Jones be fired?
2. Should the law hold him accountable?
3. Should Mr. Jones’ colleague be able to sue her employer if Mr. Jones is not fired?
4. Should she be able to sue Mr. Jones?
The fact that I’ve depicted Mr. Jones as cordial and well-intentioned (despite holding a potentially distasteful opinion) and his colleague as bellicose and vengeful is no accident. This situation will necessarily arise, unless you somehow believe people can’t both be kind and disagree with you on gender-theory.
At any rate, you will find that many (most?) people object to CRT and the likes because they worry that it gives spiteful people the means to dispose of unsavory (though not necessarily bad) people like Mr. Jones. From there, they worry that they might be next. I submit that this should worry all of us, even you.
Sure. Not for originally misspeaking, but for intentionally harassing her afterwards.
> 2. Should the law hold him accountable?
Of course, just like the above.
> 3. Should Mr. Jones’ colleague be able to sue her employer if Mr. Jones is not fired?
This one's hard to say -- but only in the exact same way all “how responsible is an employer for the actions of an employee?” matters are. Which has nothing to do with whether the employee in your example was in the wrong, because he obviously was.
> 4. Should she be able to sue Mr. Jones?
Of course.
All in all: What a hilariously silly, contrived, and wrong-headed example. How could you not notice, while typing it in, that all it shows is how ludicrously wrong your position is?
The point in this example is that the harasser-harassee relationship is exactly reversed.
It's revealing that you find the act of using the wrong pronoun to be harassment, but public shaming at the workplace and on social media to be acceptable.
I see we fundamentally disagree, which is fine. I do hope, however, that you can see why many of us disagree with you, and don't want your sociological theories enshrined into law.
And I'm sorry to disagree even on this, but no, it is not "fine": What you are disagreeing with aren't any "sociological theories" I am trying to get "enshrined into law", but with logic and reality.
2. Your simplistic theories about how people ought to be should go out the window when you meet and interact with a real person who is different from you. Think of it as avoiding making a bad impression on someone who has just as valid a reason to be who they are. Yeah, maybe this is new and uncomfortable for you, but that is how meeting anyone is.
But I am talking about honest mistakes. I am worried that people such as yourself are incapable or unwilling to distinguish them from actual bona fide harassment.
>Nobody is putting cisgendered people in jail for a slip of the tongue.
People are already being fired and cancelled for such things. This is precisely why we're having this debate.
This is precisely why many people — myself included — are terrified at the prospect of laws of company policies that attempt to regulate such speech.
There is? What is it?
In a couple of child comments you agree with some other commenter that it's “very subtle”... I'd argue that of course it is; most non-existent things are. Before rejoicing in your sophisticated ability to detect oh-so-subtle differences, please make sure there is something to detect in the first place. One of the best ways to make sure one has got something right is to explain it to others. So: What difference?
(Please don't say XY chromosomes, you don't do a genetic test on everyone you meet.)
A her is someone who was born with a vagina.
The very, very few people who don't fit clearly into either of these categories (intersex) are exceptions and can be handled on a case-by-case basis.
They are immutable because their reproductive role is immutable. A her can never impregnate. A him can never gestate.
(Either can choose not to perform their particular ability, or lose the ability to do so, but that doesn't change the meaning of these words.)
If a car is broken down, is it no longer a car?
Does it become an airplane?
As for him gestating I encourage you to read more Sci-Fi.
I have a friend who was named at birth after their absentee parent and really dislikes ever being called by that name. It is important and polite to use names that people personally prefer within reason.
Edit: as pointed out below, gender roles are something we've made up, but preferences and behavior themselves (which we're calling gender) are not. Still separate from sex.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a feminine man or a masculine woman, people can behave however they wish regardless of biology. But the most feminine man on the planet is still a man and saying so shouldn't turn you into a pariah, it's true after all.
Imagine we came up with 'Gender' like terms for other physical characteristics, it seems to me like the logic quickly breaks down when you think about it-
Gender is to Sex as ____ is to Race as ____ is to Age as ____ is to Height as ____ is to Weight as ____ is to Eye Color etc.
Your analogies don’t apply because, with the exception of age (mental age vs. physical age), there is no mental analog to race, height, eye color, etc.
I’d analogize gender identity to sexual orientation: there is nothing physiological that distinguishes heterosexual people from homosexual people, but the former are hardwired to be sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex, while the latter are hardwired to be sexually attracted to members of the same sex.
Why? What specifically makes transrace/race-identity any less valid of a concept than transgender/gender-identity? You say there is no mental analog to race but there's just as much proof of that as there is for gender identity. I've always loved african-american music and culture, I use black slang a lot, I felt like I didn't fit in with my white peers growing up- maybe I identify as black and will designate myself as such on my job/college applications going forward. Who are you to tell me my race-identity isn't valid? Maybe I'm just hardwired that way.
>I’d analogize gender identity to sexual orientation: there is nothing physiological that distinguishes heterosexual people from homosexual people, but the former are hardwired to be sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex, while the latter are hardwired to be sexually attracted to members of the same sex.
If there is nothing physiological to make that determination I think 'hardwired' isn't the right term
Because there aren’t any (or infinitesimally few) people who believe from a very young age that their “race identity” doesn’t match their genetically defined race. Gender dysphoria is rare but not infinitesimally so (~1% of the population), and it usually first emerges in childhood.
> If there is nothing physiological to make that determination I think 'hardwired' isn't the right term
Sorry, I was a bit sloppy with my language. I should have written “there is nothing grossly physiological that distinguishes heterosexual people from homosexual people.” Colloquially, we don’t generally consider neurology to be physiological, since we don’t yet have the technology to identify subtle differences in neural topology. Doesn’t mean that neurological phenomena aren’t hardwired, and thus “physiological” on a microscopic level we aren’t yet able to detect. As an extreme example, mental retardation is certainly hardwired, even though there’s often nothing grossly physiological (i.e. detectable physical brain abnormalities) that causes it.
I suspect that as science and medicine advance, we will identify the neural wiring patterns that determine one’s sexuality and gender identity (assuming we are allowed to study such things), at which point we can actually point to a definitively physiological determinant of both.
That's exactly the point. If someone's "gender identity" doesn't refer any observable characteristic other than their "gender identity", then the entire concept is circularly defined and therefore meaningless. It's like if I were to say my biological height is 5'7" but my "height identity" is 6'3". What meaning does "height identity" have and why should anyone take a concept like this seriously?
The left and center has decided it is not a joke to call someone who had a penis at birth a her, nobody will laugh at you why are you resisting being courteous?
It's as if there were two concepts, "race" and "grace", and you could be "biologically" white but "identify" as black, or "height" and "gheight", and you could be "factually" 180cm tall but "identify" as 165cm.
(This is why trans-exclusionary feminists exist, because the existence of trans people nullifies their belief that gender is 100% a social construct.)
Huh? How does that logically follow? (Hint: It doesn't.)
Feels more like it's the other way around, that the existence of gender dysphoria proves that gender is a social (and psychological?) construct: If gender were always the same as biological sex, there would be no feeling of conflict between them. That some people do feel such a conflict shows that they are not always the same. Therefore they cannot both be purely biologically determined.
Maybe it would be easier for you to grok if you thought of it not as “gender conflicting with itself”, but think of it as — privately rename it to — “sex-gender dysphoria”?
> (This is why trans-exclusionary feminists exist, because the existence of trans people nullifies their belief that gender is 100% a social construct.)
On the contrary, that seems to be exactly what the TERFs don’t believe. They should just come out and admit that “if gender is a social construct, then we’re ‘feminists’ not in terms of female- gendered people but only in terms of people of female sex.” Which, since feminism is about the role of females in society, i.e. very much a social issue, would show them up as pretty damn silly... But that’s their problem.
The last sentence does not logically follow from the other two. Lots of physical/neurological properties are correlated in the vast majority of people (e.g. biological sex/the sex you're attracted to, age/cognitive ability); the fact that they’re occasionally inconsistent in some people has no bearing on whether they’re biologically determined.
By your logic, sexual orientation is also a social construct. Most males are attracted to females, and vice versa. Using your words, “if the sex you’re attracted to were always consistent with biological sex, there would be no feeling of conflict between them. That some people do feel such a conflict shows that they are not always consistent. Therefore they cannot both be purely biologically determined.” How does that logically follow? (Hint: it doesn’t)
> privately rename it to — “sex-gender dysphoria”?
That’s exactly my point: trans people have the body of sex A, but the brain that people with a sex B body typically have. Just as gay people have the body of sex A and the brain wired to be attracted to sex A, which is again something that sex B people typically have.
>They should just come out and admit that “if gender is a social construct, then we’re ‘feminists’ not in terms of female- gendered people but only in terms of people of female sex.”
Feminism is about achieving equality between genders by advocating for women, who have typically been marginalized in society. If gender is 100% a social construct, then there should be zero difference between the brains of men and women, which makes it a lot easier to argue that they should occupy identical roles in society and thus be truly equal. The fact that trans people provide strong evidence that male (gender) and female (gender) brains are fundamentally different scares some people (i.e. TERFs), and their solution is to dismiss trans people rather than realize that different genders can still be treated equally by society even if their brains are wired differently.
> Feminism is about achieving equality between genders by advocating for women, who have typically been marginalized in society.
No, that's my point: For "TERFs", feminism is apparently not about achieving equality between genders, but about achieving equality between sexes.
As for the rest... I'm not up to going through it all in detail, but on the whole it feels like about the same level of misunderstanding.
I have problems on this front though, I'm pan myself and gender seems really insanely trivial to me - I do understand that my experience is not the common one though.
If gender is distinct from sex, then can you explain the qualifying characteristics of a "gender"?
What is the definition of "woman"? What is the definition of "man"?
Wearing high heels isn't related to being a woman intrinsically, and you don't have to be a woman to wear high heels.
The way I see it, either:
- ‘gender’ is a synonym for ‘sex’
- ‘gender’ is being misused as a synonym ‘gender roles’, which are defined by one’s sex.
If that’s not correct, then what is the actual correct definition of gender?
- man/woman
- male/female
- masculine/feminine
There is a concept of grammatical gender, where words can be masculine or feminine (or neuter in some cases, and there are other systems as well with different words). You don't talk about man words or male words, it's masculine. So, I tend to think of gender as masculine or feminine. That covers most people (although not all: nonbinary, gender fluid, genderqueer, etc. are all real).
I tend to think of sex as male or female. At least for human beings, that covers most people (not all, intersex is a real thing, and there are other unusual but 'natural' configurations as well)
So one way to look at this - which again, is probably not exactly correct, but it's how I think - male/masculine and female/feminine are what we've traditionally thought of as man and woman. But, I think it's pretty clear now that we need to account for the other combinations, i.e. male/feminine and female/masculine. That's where cis- and trans- come in: male/masculine is a cis male, female/masculine is a trans male, both are subsets in the set of all men. Same with women.
We've got nonbinary, genderqueer, etc. as well. I don't really understand the latter, but the former is pretty easy to explain: imagine being told you had to be masculine or feminine, and your response was "No, I don't. I prefer or reject some of each."
Overall, to me, gender is about what you like and how you behave, while sex is more biology (i.e., what's in your pants). It's easier to understand the arguments if you completely separate gender from sex, and don't make assumptions about one based on the other. In fact, I think the assumptions - e.g. gender roles - are the entire problem, and if people would just stop with that, a lot of things would get better.
Sure, “Gender” = “What gender role(s?) a person plays” is one way to put the social definition of gender. (Seems pretty succinct and workable, so you can drop the “misused”.)
Here's where you go wrong, though: Gender, in terms of what gender roles people play, is not always determined purely by biological sex.
There, no need to be confused any more. HTH!
You don't have the right to compel speech in other people in any way. You don't even have the right to make people call you by your birth name. Some jurisdictions like NYC have laws against malicious miss-naming by an employer or landlord, but even that only applies if they essentially make it a harassment campaign.
Like, "compel speech"? Really? You were going to use a pronoun anyways. It's just such a simple ask for the sake of politeness but you frame it as "compel speech"? This idea that it's such a burden is obviously contrived.
> Are you in prison or competing at the highest level of sports?
I assume they're dating.
My point in asking about those edge cases is to say that it's not an excuse for the wide-ranging ways we torment trans people as a society.
> > Are you in prison or competing at the highest level of sports?
> I assume they're dating.
Then the time to rise a stink and become loudly anti-trans is surely when the law starts to mandate[1] you dating them, or at the earliest, when it's starting to look as if the law is about to do so... But not before, right?
[1]: Hnyuk, hnyuk.
We seem to be finding ourselves lacking the etiquette to deal with this situation. Can you do this in the workplace, yes, with the right people and relationships. Can you treat trans people like this, yes, with the right people and relationships.
If ribbing someone causes them to get offended, you leave them alone or it is just bullying. If they come back at you, it's a game, a fun game that builds relationships with the right people.
This is a key element missing from the discussion. In some contexts being purposefully disrespectful is a good thing.
This also means you need to operate in an environment where it's okay to make a mistake, apologise and move on. You have to be able to read the person's response to attempt any of this. You cannot do that over text, so it can't be used online.
But... I have a name like David Goldsmith - common first name, two common syllable last name. People call me Dave, David, Davy, Goldsmith, and this one Indian coworker of mine always seems to call me Goldsith, which I think is cool because star wars, but also like wtf dude, you're missing the same letter every time.
The point is though, I don't really care what people call me. People call me a dozen different things nowadays. The last time I got bothered about what somebody was calling me, I was 12 and it was "Davy dumbsmith".
The point I was making is that giving someone a nickname they don't like is completely different from not calling someone a nickname they prefer.
Regarding nicknames, I do sometimes interact with people that have nicknames that I'm not comfortable with or the thought of using that name for them doesn't seem respectful. For example, I took a two week class that was taught by former astronaut Sherwood "Woody" Spring. His peers all called him Woody but it seemed too personal for the teach-student relationship we were in and I defaulted to calling him Mr. Spring. He didn't mind that. I suspect the majority of people that go by nicknames don't really mind when people call them by their given name or a formal version of their name.
Generally I think nicknames are just a bad analogy for gender, so we shouldn't use the comparison at all.
Please explain it to me because it seems awfully bigoted to perpetuate this myth that trans people are such a burden that we can't possibly treat them like how we treat each other.
Not the OP, but what a smug reply. This is not mathematics, you are not the professor, and it would be only fair if you started with your own description of said difference, as you see it. You cannot expect that everyone sees it in the same way, can you?
Do you think previously male transgender women should be permitted to enter women's athletic competition?
Do you think it is trans-phobic to say you wouldn't date someone who was transgender?
Do you think misgendering a transgender individual should be a "hatecrime"?
And this is what the debate is really about: authoritarian vs libertarian political attitudes. I’m certainly ready to have that debate, but it would require the “woke left” [0] to abandon the moral high-ground.
[0] There’s surely a better term to use, but I can’t think of it right now.
Where we seem to disagree is on the question of whether government, employers or other institutional powers have the power to silence those who don't see it our way. If we do indeed disagree, then by definition you lean towards authoritarian politics. You are willing to go further than I in restricting freedom of expression to defend trans people. You may even be right, but that makes you more authoritarian than me.
Why does this matter? Because it's the actual subject of debate. I want trans people to be treated with respect too, but my political opinion is that authoritarianism is the wrong way to achieve this outcome.
I think you will find that many people who reject identity politics / CRT / etc don't actually hate trans people. They fear authoritarian mobs and the governments they elect.
(Apologies for the multiple stealth-edits. It sometimes takes me a few tries to articulate my thoughts.)
But we live in an authoritarian system which limits the rights of transgender people by various means. It's better in the US than it is in the UK, which in turn is much better than Saudi Arabia. The Gender Critical folks want more authoritarianism. They want the government to decide your gender, and segregate transgender people from cisgender people.
Not at all, I promise.
If you reread, you'll surely notice the qualifier "seems". I used it precisely because I can't be sure what you actually think, and can therefore only talk about surface-level appearances. Please be assured that I am doing my best to interpret your comments charitably, and assuming the best of your character :)
>But we live in an authoritarian system which limits the rights of transgender people by various means.
I believe you are confusing authoritarianism with something else. Authoritarianism is roughly the idea that institutions (government, businesses, etc.) should exert more control over individuals. The presence of inequities don't qualify as authoritarianism on their own, and neither does outright discrimination. To illustrate: discriminating against a group doesn't imply that government should have more control over individuals. It's definitely bad, but it's something else.
I would urge you not to conflate the two, as this is precisely what prevents the majority of liberals from adhering to CRT et al.
>They want the government to decide your gender, and segregate transgender people from cisgender people.
I don't know if you're talking about the US, the UK or Saudi Arabia here, but in the US and UK -- two countries in which I have, incidentally, lived for quite some time -- this is not what the majority of CRT-critics want. The majority are attached to liberal values, and are concerned that the confusion of ideas that permeates CRT discourse (of which your earlier conflation is an example) lead its proponents to the conclusion that authoritarian measures are desirable.
Sorry, no. I'm not sure how many "seems" you've inserted since my first reading, but those two sentences are what I characterize as putting assumptions on me. You continue to respond to things I haven't said, so I'll stop trying. Have a nice day.
I can’t shake the feeling that you’re storming off to avoid having an actual conversation. Hopefully I’m wrong about that too.
After I pointed out that your assumptions were wrong (rendering, I don't know how much of, that comment nothingburger), you edited your post a bunch and act like I'm the weirdo for not liking what you've put in my mouth. After hedging a pile of ungenerous assumptions with "seems" (on the basis of a statement we appear to agree upon), you're now having so much trouble refraining from ungenerous assumptions that you continue to voice them behind another hedge. Does this help you understand why I'm not interested in further conversation?
Isn't it the default case that employers can set rules about how employees speak to each other? Do you see anything wrong with an employer saying "you must make a good-faith effort to call people by their preferred name and pronouns"?
Yes, I understand. But, much of the opposition you're seeing isn't because people are "against trans people". It's because they're opposed solving the problem of intolerance through authoritarian methods.
The proposed protections for trans people are in response to real acts of violence that are not in line with laws like the 14th Amendment which promotes equality for all people.
And let's remember that these laws to protect trans people are only being proposed. Many laws on the books are against trans people. What you're reacting to is social pressure to treat trans people with respect, not authoritarian legal pressure. If anyone is feeling authoritarian legal pressure it's trans people.
Of course not. I'm perhaps being an asshole, but authoritarianism is a concept applied to policymaking, not manners. It roughly translates to the belief that institutions should have more power over individuals. Calling people the wrong name, no matter how mean-spirited, is expressing no such belief.
The point is that certain things -- bad though they may be -- are not to be legislated. You may disagree with this premise, and you may even be correct, and that would definitionally make you lean towards authoritarianism.
To reiterate, many people -- myself included -- agree with you that it is unkind to call trans people the wrong name. Where you seem to disagree with us is that we find the prospect of things like compelled speech to be terrifying and fundamentally at odds with the principles of liberal government.
In fact, I could just as well retort that you are currently positioning yourself as an authority on becoming a authority, which is just as ludicrous, and just as irrelevant to the question at hand.
Again, this kind of conflation of ideas and Jesuit argumentation is precisely why CRT is opposed by a great many liberals.
When the presumption of ill intent (and not e.g. confusion or ignorance) is automatic, there’s not much left to discuss.
It’s worth remembering that cis children (and adults) are misgendered too, including for reasons as banal as unorthodox appearance or unusual names.
The purpose of these compelled speech laws is to deal with repeated discriminatory or repeated bullying behaviour. Not to give everyone a tool to denounce strangers and get them into trouble with the law .
Do you have any suggestions how what laws freithen you can be adjusted to make you more comfortable with them while allowing for harsher punishments for bullying/discriminatory due to them being a class worth protecting more?