Can we not just let people be who they are and recognize gender minorities do exist? Acknowledging the existence of trans men doesn't reduce the incredible experiences of any woman who gives birth (or doesn't!)
> Can we not just let people be who they are and recognize gender minorities do exist? Acknowledging the existence of trans men doesn't reduce the incredible experiences of any woman who gives birth (or doesn't!)
I understand both sides of this argument, I've thought about it a lot, and I've come to a different conclusion than you. Being a man or a woman is a brute fact. It has nothing to do with identity. Only women give birth.
What bothers me is not our disagreement but that my view has been labeled "hateful" or "problematic".
You're allowed to disagree but you've already asserted that my view is hateful and ignorant which was my original complaint.
I think as long as you acknowledge there are people who use language to disambiguate sex and gender, but you choose not to use that language, then you are just expressing your opinion.
I think it's fair for folks to probe why you choose the language you do, and even to suggest that the reasons you supply might be considered ignorant.
We only improve if we all try to understand the reasoning behind each other more.
I don't use "yeet" as a word, and I find it silly. But nonetheless I'm aware some people do use it, and so it's in my lexicon as a word that I just don't care for.
My point is that we cannot deny new usages. We can disagree with them or choose not to use them, but denying them is just never going to work.
This is not remotely the same as making up a new word like yeet.
I believe language is descriptive, and therefore definitions follow usage. If there exists new usage in common enough use, then the definition follows that use.
And I don't believe the traditional use of a word makes one a bigot by default. I think that there are both bigots and non bigots that use the words traditionally.
But this thread is absolutely stock full of people refusing to acknowledge that there might be multiple correct definitions.
> There's this strange perception that anything new must be good and right. Perhaps OPs language isn't keeping up with the times, or maybe the times are just...incorrect.
This asserts that newness does not equate with correctness. This implicitly recognizes that there are multiple uses.
Other places in this post people absolutely do deny the usage.
> My point is that we cannot deny new usages. We can disagree with them or choose not to use them, but denying them is just never going to work.
Where is someone denying that people use these terms in these new ways? I haven't read all the comments but haven't seen it so far.
That's the ultimate issue here. Different groups of people want to disambiguate some terms and conflate others, and there is not enough overlap between these groups to reach a common ground. At its core is a struggle for power with the meanings of words representing territory to be won or lost.
Orwell wrote extensively on this topic and left us with some pretty stern warnings which we as a society continue to ignore. And while everyone fights over this stuff we are ruining the planet and risking catastrophic consequences both environmental and political.
You can carry on as you've always had, but some fraction of the public will assume ignorance, some stubbornness, and some malice. It's not really any different than terms for ethnic minorities or those with disabilities over time. How you approach it is up to you, but how people perceive you is up to them.
Some people (you, apparently) agree with that and just want to shift the definitions so "man" means "someone who identifies as a man" and will be replaced by "biological man". But other people don't agree, they don't believe that "man" and "woman" are immanent categories that exist outside language and culture.
As far as language changing, it certainly does, but it rarely changes by fiat. I don't believe changes referenced in this article represent organic change, I think they're a fad that will only catch on in a few enclaves. We'll see.
That's absurd. It divides humans into two groups, and everytime you divide humans into groups they make this about their identity.
I don’t particularly care what the common use meanings are or if they shift over time, I’ll use what I think is most appropriate for the circumstances and audience, while trying to be as inclusive as I can.
Though I won’t be using “menstruators” any time soon for the same reason I won’t use “Latinx”, too many people I interact with find it derogatory and offensive.
And that language changes doesn't mean all changes are equally good. When language loses its grip on reality, we've lost. We've become Orwellian.
Among people who are Very Online this might be a sizable fraction. But if you look at the public at large it isn't. Language is about usage. It's not about usage by an elite minority. Reminds me of latinx, favored more by white college grads than by hispanics.
Maya Forstater was fired, and JK Rowling still receives death threats for their use of the word "woman" to signify adult human females. That's domestic terrorism, to present it as "the language is always changing" is Orwellian.
> It's not really any different than terms for ethnic minorities
What if the USA declared all citizens to be "black"? Blacks would now perfectly match all the USA's demographic averages, income, crime, lifespan, etc, etc.
Racism solved, right? Or the beginning of a vastly worse racism that must be endured in silence because the words to describe it have been taken away?
I think I've articulated my position and held it firmly, but at no point did I feel upset about people who disagreed.
I don't believe I called anyone a bigot or was any more rigid in my language than folks who hold a more traditional meaning of the word in their minds.
You ask questions rather than name call and finger point.
While I personally struggle with these new definitions and their potential cost to certain groups (someone pregnant like the post’s author), I feel like I can actually discuss and learn something new, and feel heard myself.
We need more activists like you.
Inevitably, patience wears thin and comments get more bitter, and the polarization continues.
I'm sure the reverse happens for folks who disagree with me. They get tired of everyone just assuming they are a bigot, and start just assuming that's what's coming from the other side.
I wish there were more forums to have small, moderated chats where anyone who makes sweeping generalizations about their opponents ("you lefties always..." "All your right wingers...") were clipped out.
There’s a lot of fearmongering on both sides. I think people already come to the table really amped up quick to throw stones.
Hear, hear on the forums part, though.
It seems to me that the words in question ("man", "woman", etc), were used to refer to both biological sex and gender for centuries under the assumption that they always co-occurred. The conflict has arisen now that we've realised they don't always co-occur because different people have taken different views on which of part was primary or definitional. Neither view is inherently wrong. But taken together they're hugely problematic because we're using the same words to mean different things, which is leading to lots of confusion.
(there is additional conflict as some people have decided that we ought to not talk about one or other of biological sex and gender at all - which one depends on who you ask of course)
Ultimately the solution will need to be a second (and perhaps a third) set of words that are clear in their meanings. I don't think it really matters too much which word means what, so long as we all agree on the meanings. Possibly it would be better to ditch "man" and "woman" entirely so nobody feels hard done by that other people can use them but they can't.
Right, so, by your definition, most women over 50, and women incapable of having a child, are actually men?
Or just perhaps there is a more complicated nuance here…
it does not imply there are no woman who can't give birth.
The sense I get from the article is definitely that she thinks people who can't give birth are unworthy of the title "woman" and that follows with the comments about menstruation at the bottom. Aka, if somebody hasn't bled through their shorts in gym class, they are not a woman
I think you're missing the point.
Biology may be a fact, but we can, and do, choose to value the link between parent and child socially as the most important part, not the biological link.
We can do the same with gender, referencing identity over biology in the general case. Why have you come to the opposite conclusion?
If someone said that about adoptive parents, would you just accept that?
If you want to get rid of the words man/woman altogether socially, feel free to advocate for that, but until you succeed, don't dictate to trans people that live in a society with those words that they (and they alone) can't use the ones they identify with.
I do somewhat think that this might need to be the solution. However, I think this goes both ways. If trans people don't want to me to use the words "man"/"woman" in the ways that I see fit, then they shouldn't use them either. I certainly don't appreciate what now seems to be a connotation of "man" (the identity I use), that I "feel like a man" (I have no such feeling).
> The difference is you are saying identity has to be prescribed by biological sex.
I'm not saying identity has to be prescribed by biological sex. I am saying that it is reasonable to identify someone on the basis of many gendered categories.
Three key ones would be:
- biological sex (physical characteristics) - gender feeling (an internal feeling of gender) - political gender (how other people gender you)
Importantly for me, identifying someone as a gender in one sense (say a man in the biological sense) does not contradict someone else identifying someone as a gender in another sense (say that person identifying themselves as a woman in the feeling sense). They can both be valid simultaneously.
We wouldn't say you shouldn't describe someone as black (race) because they're really a man (gender), because gender and race aren't equivalent. To me, it seems like the same applies to the different dimensions of gender. They exist independently of one another, and shouldn't be seen as equivalent. The only problem is that we use same words for both categories.
I would add that there are good reasons for people to want to identify others in ways other than that they self-identify. As an example:
I am exclusively attracted to biologically female people. If I can't identify people by their biological sex, then I cannot express my sexuality. I therefore think it's reasonable for me to want to talk about the class of biological females. And given that there is no socially accepted term for this other than "women", I think it is reasonable for me to use that term, even if not everyone in that groups identifies as a woman.
But it’s not different. All of the same arguments apply. One could argue that “father” has a deep-rooted, unambiguous, biological meaning. One could argue that the use of “father” to describe an adoptive guardian is distorting this fundamental biological truth. One could assert their right to never refer to your adoptive guardian as your “father” because it’s just untrue.
But nobody does that because obviously that would be extremely hurtful and rude to adopted children and adoptive parents.
I have never once seen a screed like “Their birth certificate might say you’re their father, and you might play catch with them and celebrate Father’s Day, but at the end of the day, that doesn’t change the fact that at the genetic level, this child is simply not yours. They are someone else’s.”
Few people will see an adoptive mother at a class for new mothers and say “This is really uncomfortable for me. Why is she here? She did not give birth to this child. She’s not even lactating at all. What made her choose to spend her time hanging around us real mothers? I’d rather be with a group of only birth-giving mothers. I would feel safer sharing my experiences.”
In summary:
"There are several crucial differences between biological and adoptive parents, on the one hand, and transwomen and women, on the other hand. These include:
- that both biological and adoptive parents actually parent, whereas it’s not at all clear what transwomen and women have in common that is supposed to play this same role;
- that there is no historical power relationship between biological and adoptive parents, whereas there is between male and female people;
- that calling adoptive parents parents doesn’t undermine our understanding of what it is to be a parent because what is core to parenting — raising children — is done by both, whereas what is core to being a woman is being female, and that is not done by both;
- there is no established history of adoptive parental violence against biological parents, whereas there is an established history of male violence against women;
- that adoptive parents do have ‘similar enough concerns and interests’ to biological parents, but transwomen do not have these to women (especially considering the heterogeneity among transwomen);
- that there is no ‘oppressive ideological agenda of parenthood’ but there is of being a woman (namely being feminine); and finally,
- that there are many ways to be a bad parent, which we can probably agree on, but there are no ways to be a bad woman."
Language isn't static.
Science isn't static.
Woman (and man) as terms are evolving in their use to mean "the roles we expect people to fill based on their sex".
You might disagree with this evolution of the language, by all means, I am not the arbiter of how language should change.
But I do believe saying a word has a fixed, unchanging definition (and adding that your definition is the only correct one) is not a useful position to hold. I believe that even if you disagree with the use, you should acknowledge that a significant number of people have different definitions from you.
I come from a culture that is thousands of years old, and don't wish to change the definition of "Mom" just yet without good reason.
> Woman (and man) as terms are evolving in their use to mean "the roles we expect people to fill based on their sex".
It is for example by no means universal that we do expect people of a certain sex to fulfil a certain role. And many people explicitly reject that definition of gender for themselves because they have no intention of fulfilling the role. For these people to then be told that it is the definitional meaning of their gender identity seems... no better than telling trans people they aren't the gender they identify as.
In fact, this is why it's so useful to have a term for the idea that what's "feminine" in Saudi Arabia is not the same as what's feminine in Inuit culture.
I believe that people should be able to evaluate the gender roles of where they are and accept, reject, or define them. If a cis woman wants to shave her head, get buff, wear flannel, get into fights, and call herself a woman then awesome. She's rejected the "traditional" gender roles for herself and made her own way.
I would never tell someone the way they experience their own gender is wrong. But I think it's absolutely reasonable to discuss generalizations about gender roles in context and invite people to think about whether they feel like they identify with that role or not.
Having to use translation/dictionary for my native language means it failed in a big way.
And all languages are rooted on some level in reality.
But here it's a small minority of exceptionally aggressive people with nothing better to do, trying to change language by forceful tactics. They need to receive strong pushback and possibly exclusion. Words exist purely to communicate, they have no other purpose. Once bored over-educated people are allowed to start redefining the language it's open season and they won't ever stop. See: newspeak, inspired by the Soviet Union. Given your username you should know all about that.
This verbal game-playing has already caused immense damage with the effort to redefine words like racism to mean "discrimination based on skin color that's bad unless it's against white people", an effort that now means accusations of racism no longer carry any weight. Ditto for the attempt to redefine fascism to mean "anything that isn't far left". Words have meanings and people may not simply try to blow their way through to a new meaning by viciously attacking everyone who uses the normal definition until they concede through exhaustion. It's anti-social behavior to do that regardless of whether you like the idea or not. Come up with new words if you care so much.
I'd like to think I'm rather the opposite - firm in my convictions but willing to walk anyone through my reasoning. You may not agree with my conclusions and you may walk away thinking I'm out of touch.
But I feel I'm watching a situation where both sides are painting with over broad brushes - you accuse everyone of being exceptionally aggressive, many folks in my camp accuse everyone of being a bigot. It's the same pattern, imo, and we'd get a lot farther if we all avoided such generalizations. (Imo)
But let me ask, do you really argue that the people arguing that women shouldn't be called women, are not exceptionally aggressive? These are people who routinely throw around accusations of "phobias" and "isms", publicly demand people be fired and often succeed for using language in ways that are entirely normal, routinely destroy people's entire lives overnight and are widely regarded as people you want to stay away from at all costs. There are views being expressed in this thread that are just flat out crazy, like the idea that if you go on a date with someone you should immediately ask them what genitals they have as a matter of course and if you don't and are then caught by surprise, the problem is you!
"you accuse everyone of being exceptionally aggressive, many folks in my camp accuse everyone of being a bigot"
That's exactly the point. Do you see the connection here? Accusing everyone of being a bigot is exceptionally aggressive behavior. There isn't some equivalence here. People who engage in those tactics will be described as aggressive as a consequence, they can't then say "well I think you're a bigot so we're even", that's not how it works. Aggression is about concrete, objective acts.
Very true, but what was claimed in the comment you replied to is the current scientific position, has been for some time, and hasn't changed. The idea that mammalian zoology will suddenly find a third sex at any point in the future also seems fanciful, regardless of any theoretical possibility that it could change.
I’m lost, could you explain this? Are you referring to birth by those who don’t identify as female and were themselves born biologically female?
Yes, I'm referring to several groups of people - trans men who were born women, intersex people who may have been assigned man or woman, non-binary/queer/agender people who were born with a functional uterus.
All three of those groups might not be women. They may identify as female, but not women. Or they may not identify as female.
Language is evolving and not settled at all, but there's a movement to separate the concepts of "man" and "male". For example, we can probably agree that Bruce Willis is manlier than PeeWee Herman. But they are both male. Manliness, how much a "man" someone is, is a huge spectrum and it's socially defined. Likewise, how "womanly" someone is is a spectrum, and also cultural.
By separating the concepts of man from male, and woman from female, we can discuss how womanly or manly someone is, and what our societies expect from the roles of women and men.
I find it useful. Others have strong aversions to even discussing the concept. I'm happy to answer further questions!
This doesn't seem to be anything new. Go back 100 years, or more, there were manly women and effeminate men.
In many ways the gender rigidity of late 20th century western society is an exception in human history.
[0]: The Machineries of Empire series
So now we're policing people's gender based on their habits? "If you wear pants you're not a REAL woman"?
I think it's a bad practice. If I want to wear a skirt and call myself a man or a woman wants to wear pants, who the fuck cares.
(Traditionalists care, a lot, as it turns out.)
I say let people decide what they want to wear and not make any assumptions about how to label them.
I thought the male/female dichotomy was the one meant to be separated from matters of identity, and simply be a biology based designation. I understand identifying as man or woman or neither is a self determined social designation; but how can someone claim that they are not female if they have two X chromosomes?
The easiest way to explain this is that being intersex also exists in biology:
These sets of people are small, but non zero. It's probably safe to say nearly all XX people identify as female.
Note that this definition of women is either circular or culture specific (depending on which of the two trans inclusive definitions you are using).
A biological definition is more useful in most cases.
This is just silly.
Your position is too reductive.
I can "acknowledge" something, but I don't have to change anything.
Medicine has done a great job excluding groups as a large as ‘women’ historically. Still does in many areas.
Biology did that. Society is recognizing it, and only recently at that, by giving women sex-based rights.
> by declaring that society should be organized around the majority, rather than attempting to accommodate as many people as possible?
The needs of X vs the needs of Y.
Females need single-sex spaces to avoid violence and rape. Males do not need to be in female single-sex spaces. Needs trump wants.
> zero-sum war of
Many things are zero sum. A single-sex space is only useful if it remains single-sex. A single male rapist can traumatize and attack an entire rape shelter of female victims.
Women's rights don't matter if "woman" means whatever anyone else wants.
We always have an obligation to design society to accommodate everyone, not just the majority. Otherwise, with your line of reasoning, you might as well repeal the ADA, do away with ethical AI considerations to enable equal processing of richer skin tones, etc.
I'm 6'3" and I wish plane seats were designed with me in mind, but they aren't. My short wife wishes countertops were usually built higher, but they aren't.
I think children are treated very poorly in our society and I've homeschooled my children to allow them to exert more agency over their lives. I'm fortunate to live in the US where this is legal, but in most of the world it isn't. Other cultures believe that they should dictate that children's time be spent according to adults' wishes. How can both be accommodated?
If we can make a simple change to include everyone, not just a subset, why wouldn't we do that?
Changing common language for the sole purpose of being an “ally” to some ultra small minority only serves to confuse. Quite a dumb thing to do when the best possible effect is sparing a few hurt feelings.
99% of the people who support this nonsense aren’t in the affected group and are simply trying to earn “cool points” via virtue signaling.
This allyship has a material, positive benefit on my life beyond just "feelings".
Trans and non binary people represent somewhere around 1-3% of people. (Some studies push it up to about 5%, others closer to 0.5%)
This makes trans and non binary folks about as frequent as wheelchair users or people with red hair. That's millions of people in America, and it's enough people that most workplaces and schools will have trans and non binary people in them.