JK Rowling is a TERF

[John Dule]

What exactly is wrong about what Rowling said?

[John Dule]

What exactly is wrong about what Rowling said?

She complained about the existence of Trans people and tried to pull out the rape card without any relevance to the topic at hand as a cover for her own bigotry. That’s pretty wrong and dumb tbh.

Really? I didn't see any complaints about the existence of trans people in that article. In fact she was very considerate towards transgenders and said that they deserved political protections. Her point was not that trans people are violent perverts. Her point is that, in a culture where a "woman" can be anyone who calls themselves a woman, there is basically no point in having gender-segregated bathrooms or locker rooms because anyone can walk in and there is no way of knowing whether they belong there or not. This is pretty straightforward and not at all controversial.

[John Dule]

Ok can someone please explain to me the differences between Transgender and Intersex in LGBTQIA+ I don't mean to offend anyone but they sound like the same thing.

A transgender (trans) person is someone whose gender identity does not match the one they were assigned at birth (determined by biological sex).

An intersex person is someone whose biological sex does not fit neatly into male or female.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Sex binary you're either Male or Female genetically i.e. Y/X or X/X but gender is more of a spectrum so how does Intersex work with that?

Like almost everything in biology, "sex is binary" is a rule with lots of exceptions. Biological sex is binary for somewhere around 99% of people (I'm not an expert so I'm not going to try to pinpoint an exact number) but for the remaining ~1%, either the chromosomes are something other than XX or XY (like, for example, XXY) or some medical condition causes people's genitals or some other aspect of their biological sex to form in an unusual way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

Again, I'm not an expert on the subject so I might not have used all the terms exactly right. But the existence of intersex people is not something that anyone in the know denies.

Yes. And some people are born with one eye, or with three arms. But if you ask someone how many arms or how many eyes a person has, they will say "two." The same is true for genders. Acknowledging statistical anomalies does not mean that we must incorporate them into our everyday lexicon.

[John Dule]

What is the point in having gendered restrooms if there is no circumstance under which you could tell someone they're using the wrong one?

[John Dule]

What is the point in having gendered restrooms if there is no circumstance under which you could tell someone they're using the wrong one?

Because the vast majority of people aren't douchebags who pretend to be trans in order to either (a) make a transphobic point or (b) stalk people in the bathroom. And if they were stalking people in the bathroom, THAT WOULD STILL BE ILLEGAL regardless of gender. But I agree, we should move toward gender-neutral bathrooms that have more privacy than bathrooms have currently.

Also I'm still waiting for a response: was my definition of intersex wrong? Also, are there other medical conditions we should stop using words to refer to, because they're uncommon?

Good, I'm glad you take the position that we should have gender-neutral bathrooms. Most people I've heard speak on this subject still think that we should have segregated restrooms, even though there is apparently no way to identify a man or a woman who is using the incorrect one. Seems pretty pointless.

However, the "vast majority of people" may not take advantage of this, but apparently nothing is stopping them. Nothing is stopping me-- a 6'3" man-- from "identifying" as a woman and joining the WNBA. Nothing is stopping a man from entering a woman's bathroom-- his behavior might get him kicked out, but apparently the fact that he is in there is not enough to remove him from the premises by your standards. I think there is a way to compromise here that preserves the rights of transgenders while simultaneously rejecting the (obviously wrong) radical idea that anyone can "identify" as whatever they please.

Also, I did not call your definition of intersex wrong. I was adding a footnote of sorts to your post.

[John Dule]

I think the key thing here that a lot of the trans movement seems to have forgotten is that there is a difference between biological sex and gender identity. Sometimes your gender identity is the relevant thing. Other times your biological sex is what's relevant, like in elite sports leagues or what bathroom you use, particularly if it's one where people shower or change clothes. You've got people now earnestly calling biological sex a "social construct". Pretty sure no one "decided" that some people would have penises and others would have vaginas unless you believe in god.

They also appear to have forgotten that the distinction to which you refer was created out of thin air by a quack child abuser. After many years of asking questions on this subject, I still don't understand what people mean by "gender identity" because every gender activist seems to have their own imaginary definition. If it simply relates to gender roles-- the clothes you choose to wear, how long you cut your hair, your interests, your hobbies-- then that's fine. Those are gender roles. But I don't see how that relates to things like pronouns, ID cards, sports, restrooms, or locker rooms, all of which have to do with your actual gender, not how you choose to express yourself.

[John Dule]

I think the key thing here that a lot of the trans movement seems to have forgotten is that there is a difference between biological sex and gender identity. Sometimes your gender identity is the relevant thing. Other times your biological sex is what's relevant, like in elite sports leagues or what bathroom you use, particularly if it's one where people shower or change clothes. You've got people now earnestly calling biological sex a "social construct". Pretty sure no one "decided" that some people would have penises and others would have vaginas unless you believe in god.

They also appear to have forgotten that the distinction to which you refer was created out of thin air by a quack child abuser. After many years of asking questions on this subject, I still don't understand what people mean by "gender identity" because every gender activist seems to have their own imaginary definition. If it simply relates to gender roles-- the clothes you choose to wear, how long you cut your hair, your interests, your hobbies-- then that's fine. Those are gender roles. But I don't see how that relates to things like pronouns, ID cards, sports, restrooms, or locker rooms, all of which have to do with your actual gender, not how you choose to express yourself.

Hey remember back when you were pretending to not be offensively transphobic lol

I don't recall any time when I was not fully up front with regards to my views on this subject.

[John Dule]

Also as per usual, many anti-trans people in this thread are either extremely misinformed or are themselves being intentionally misleading. It's weird seeing people make broad generalizations about what feminists, trans ppl, or any other particular group supposedly believe, when it's painfully obvious they have never been exposed to any of those communities and are relying on second- and third-hand knowledge to inform their opinions

Well, then this is an excellent chance for you to educate us poor toothless hick bigots on what "gender identity" means! Good of you to take this opportunity instead of falling back into smug mischaracterizations and personal attacks.

[John Dule]

Also as per usual, many anti-trans people in this thread are either extremely misinformed or are themselves being intentionally misleading. It's weird seeing people make broad generalizations about what feminists, trans ppl, or any other particular group supposedly believe, when it's painfully obvious they have never been exposed to any of those communities and are relying on second- and third-hand knowledge to inform their opinions

John Dule isn't even making a coherent argument--he's just throwing out every anti-trans argument he's ever heard and hoping that something sticks. Furthermore, he's another example of a "libertarian" who only supports "liberty" for privileged people. Look, now he's accusing you of calling him a "toothless hick".

I have never advocated taking away anyone's rights on this forum.

[John Dule]

while simultaneously rejecting the (obviously wrong) radical idea that anyone can "identify" as whatever they please.

Nope, nobody's rights are being taken away here!

Excuse me, but do you have a "right" to levitate that is being "taken away" by the law of gravity? Do you have a "right" to be 12 years old that was somehow "taken away" by time? Do you have a "right" to be a woman that was denied to you by your chromosomes? Of course not. It sounds like your problem here is not with me-- it's with God, physics, nature, or whatever other universal motive forces you happen to believe in.

[John Dule]

Nothing is stopping a man from entering a woman's bathroom-- his behavior might get him kicked out, but apparently the fact that he is in there is not enough to remove him from the premises by your standards.

I should probably respond to this as well.

What exactly would this person gain from entering a women's bathroom? If you try to answer this question, you'll realize why it doesn't happen in real life.

How is this relevant? Unlike Mrs. Rowling, I did not argue that men are going to start sneaking into restrooms to sexually assault people just because of these laws (if they wanted to do that, they'd have been doing it beforehand anyway). I am simply trying to identify the logic behind your argument.

[John Dule]

while simultaneously rejecting the (obviously wrong) radical idea that anyone can "identify" as whatever they please.

Nope, nobody's rights are being taken away here!

What rights does he want to specifically deny an adult transgender person?
Go ahead.

The right to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity?

There, that wasn't too hard.

If you look back through this thread, you will find-- to your surprise, perhaps-- that I never said that.

[John Dule]

while simultaneously rejecting the (obviously wrong) radical idea that anyone can "identify" as whatever they please.

Nope, nobody's rights are being taken away here!

What rights does he want to specifically deny an adult transgender person?
Go ahead.

The right to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity?

There, that wasn't too hard.

If you look back through this thread, you will find-- to your surprise, perhaps-- that I never said that.

you quite literally are, by virtue of the fact that you're denying that "gender identity" is a legitimate/valid concept

If you look back through this thread, you will find-- to your surprise, perhaps-- that I never said that.

[John Dule]

OK, so what solution do you propose that would allow trans people to use their correct bathroom and keep unwanted people out? (I don't think the unwanted people are actually an issue, but you seem to.)

I don't care about the issue of bathroom discrimination. If you noticed, I actually endorsed the idea of having one gender-neutral bathroom for everyone earlier in this thread. It worked for my dorm and it should work for the rest of the country. My point with these comments is to get you guys to understand that if "identifying" as the opposite gender is the only criteria for entering that restroom, a whole lot of logical conclusions necessarily follow that I don't think you fully appreciate.

[John Dule]

Do you have a "right" to be a woman that was denied to you by your chromosomes? Of course not.

Devastating... people no longer have the right to dye their hair because their chromosomes told them they must be blonde/brunette/redhead.

Oooooh, really bad analogy. If a person has brown hair and dyes it blonde, we differentiate them from a "natural blonde," do we not? This is because we understand that they are visually presenting themselves in one way, but that their blonde hair color was not determined by their genes. This comparison supports my argument, and you should've thought it through better before posting it.

Edit: He deleted the post lol.

[John Dule]

Her point is that, in a culture where a "woman" can be anyone who calls themselves a woman, there is basically no point in having gender-segregated bathrooms or locker rooms because anyone can walk in and there is no way of knowing whether they belong there or not. This is pretty straightforward and not at all controversial.

If that is her explicit point, then she does a terrible point of making it. She spends most of the essay talking about how trans activists are sending her death threats (which I'm sure some are, and those people are deplorable and should be condemned, but it doesn't make her any more right), how young people are being pressured into identifying as transgender (which they aren't, the recent upward tick in trans children is a sign of society progressing to where trans people feel safer to come out), and talks about her personal experiences with womanhood and what that means for her (which some of the stuff is genuinely disheartening and I am sorry she had to go through the domestic abuse she faced, although this obviously has nothing to do with the topic at hand). Do any of these really have anything to do with her alleged point?

Speaking as someone with no particular insight into Rowling's mind, I would imagine that this particular essay was intended to humanize her in the eyes of the people trolling her online. I was referring to her prior comments with that post.

Yes, most people do have two eyes and two arms. And yes, most people consider themselves to be either male or female and as such children are taught there are men and women. Things are often simplified to make things easier for children to understand, but just because people were told that were three stages of matter in early elementary school, doesn't mean that plasma is SJW nonsense.

And if you want to believe that sex is absolute and binary for simplicity's sake, then fine. Most trans people are perfectly comfortable acknowledging their biological sex and don't wish to abolish it, they just also believe that gender isn't intertwined with it. It's mostly intersex activists who find the sex binary unhelpful for the various reasons Figueira pointed out.

Regardless, sex being binary or not doesn't interfere with your "everyday lexicon". It isn't hard to be trans inclusive with your language, as the author of the article that started the whole debacle did by saying "people who menstruate", thereby including trans men and AFAB non-binary people who menstruate in addition to cis women.

There are two separate groups of people you are discussing here. Intersex people are born with a chromosome disorder that biologically makes them neither male nor female. A trans person mentally identifies with the opposite gender. The first group can be identified through objective biological markers. The second cannot. This makes the two fundamentally different in this debate, and pooling them together as if the issues confronting them are the same is dishonest.

And this is why the language around this debate is so confusing to me. I thought transgender people accepted the gender binary? Doesn't a transgender person transition from male to female, or the other way around? There are no other genders for them to transition to, after all, because there are only two genders... right? In what way is gender "not intertwined" with sex? I understand, for instance, that one might refer to "gender expression" as it relates to a number of things-- clothes, hair, mannerisms, etc-- but those are just individual traits. I am looking for your definition of what "gender" actually is. Sorry, but I guess I'm just not a decent enough person to research a vocabulary exhaustively developed by Tumblr users-- none of whom can even agree among themselves as to what these words mean.

However, the "vast majority of people" may not take advantage of this, but apparently nothing is stopping them. Nothing is stopping me-- a 6'3" man-- from "identifying" as a woman and joining the WNBA. Nothing is stopping a man from entering a woman's bathroom-- his behavior might get him kicked out, but apparently the fact that he is in there is not enough to remove him from the premises by your standards. I think there is a way to compromise here that preserves the rights of transgenders while simultaneously rejecting the (obviously wrong) radical idea that anyone can "identify" as whatever they please.

Well, the fact that you're an Atlas poster and not a professional basketball player is stopping you, for one. Maybe you should try identifying as a decent person instead. Aside from the ad hominem attacks™, do you honestly think an organization like the WNBA, which people have to work rigorously for years to be a part of, have athletes that are always in the public eye, have access to extensive background checks for their athletes, etc. would go "drats, foiled again by those SJWs, I suppose we have to admit this 6'3" man in because he says he's a woman"?

You know, I understand that as a person who considers themselves "marginalized," you come to these discussions with an enormous chip on your shoulder. I do my best to empathize with that. But just this once, can you make the attempt to not assume that I am a member of the Bible-thumbing clique of social conservatives who you're probably accustomed to interacting with in these sorts of conversations? I am an individual with unique views, not a strawman of a bigoted right-winger upon whom you can unload your pent-up anger. If you engage with the comments I have actually written in this thread and stop trying to imagine what's going on in my mind, your responses will markedly improve.

You've once again willfully missed my point. I don't care about what the WNBA's actual standards are. I am trying to find logical consistency in your argument, and I am trying to understand at what point you think a person's mental "identity" ought to receive institutional recognition. What standards would you apply? Anyway, I don't believe you actually misunderstood this, because you possess reading comprehension skills. You just chose not to address the crux of my question because-- as with all gender activists-- you don't actually have an answer for it. This is what happens when a movement bases itself in terms with deliberately nebulous, ever-changing definitions. There is nothing concrete about these statements, which is why I find them so head-slappingly pointless.
 

In the very simplest of terms, gender identity refers to one's perception of their gender. This most often correlates to a person's birth sex, but doesn't always. This is different from gender expression, which refers to how the ways a person presents adheres to their gender identity or not, and gender roles, which refers to the expected social norms that dictates how men and women in a society typically present and behave. All of this information and sources can be found on Wikipedia's page for gender identity, which you can read in your own time if you're actually interested in the subject.

What does this mean? You just said a few paragraphs ago that "Most trans people are perfectly comfortable acknowledging their biological sex and don't wish to abolish it, they just also believe that gender isn't intertwined with it." Either gender has a relationship to biological sex or it doesn't. If the two are completely untethered from one another, it wouldn't make sense for gender to "correspond" with sex; they'd be two entirely different things. I mean, you've just offered up three different terms. "Gender identity" is how you perceive your own gender, "gender expression" is how you express your gender, and "gender roles" refer to social norms. All of this makes sense... except I still don't understand what the word "gender" itself means. If I re-read this paragraph assuming that "gender" refers only to biological sex, then it's very intuitive and straightforward. I know, however, that's not what you meant-- so I'm afraid you've only left me more confused.

Ignoring the first two points which are laughably hollow and immature, I'll concede the in your view I don't have a "right" to be a woman. I do however have a right to use which bathroom I please, right to choose to undergo hormone replacement therapy to help alleviate gender dysphoria, and right to call myself a woman, live as a woman, and enter women's spaces should I choose- regardless if some transphobes take issue with that.

Neither I nor anyone in this thread has proposed taking away any of those rights. My questions here have been intended to identify what objective guiding principles you use in determining a person's gender identity.

[John Dule]

Uhh... no? Identifying as a male or a female doesn't mean that you reject people who feel comfortable outside the gender binary. If a trans person transitions, for example, from male to female, it doesn't mean that they don't believe there are other options for other people, just like we as cis people don't (have to) demand that everyone identifies as either male or female because we identify as males.

Before I respond to the rest of this, can you answer a quick few questions for me? I really do not understand how you are using the terminology here. Every trans person I know of is either a biological man transitioning to life as a woman or a biological woman transitioning to life as a man. Surgery and/or visual presentation are often involved. Do we agree so far? Now, in what way does this fall outside of the gender binary? Where are the "other options" for genders that you speak of, and why do transgender people never transition physically to those? See, it once again sounds to me like "gender" is synonymous with "biological sex" here, because I only ever hear of trans people transitioning within that binary.

[John Dule]

One thing you have to consider when talking about trans and non-binary people is that the experience can vary vastly from person to person. Sure, a lot of trans people of a certain identity might want similar things. Some trans people take hormone replacement therapy to make their body more full of testosterone or estrogen, and some trans people may try to have surgery and/or bodily modifications done on their sexual characteristics. However, it's not always like that. Some trans people don't want hormone replacement therapy. A larger amount of trans people than you'd think don't want sexual re-assignment surgery. How one decides to present their gender through their appearance may vary.

When you consider that not all trans people want to transition the same way, it may make it easier to understand that non-binary people are just as varied, if not more. The definition of "non-binary" is literally anyone whose gender isn't strictly male or female. Under that umbrella is a giant myriad of people of vastly different identities. There are non-binary people who might have no gender identity, a mix between male and female, fluctuating between different genders, or maybe some completely different identity that nobody else has. Because of how much of a melting pot the non-binary community is, there isn't really one specific way to go about things. Like a lot of things about gender, it's on a case-by-case basis. One of the biggest parts of having an identity is that it's 100% on your terms. Nobody gets to choose what you get to do with your gender except for you. Don't wanna take HRT? That's okay. Wanna wear a skirt even if you're a male? That's okay too. Your gender expression is up to you.

Sorry if this doesn't answer your question the way you wanted it to. If you have any questions about any of this, please don't feel afraid of publicly or privately asking me. As someone who is trans and non-binary, I definitely wouldn't mind trying to guide you on how this whole thing works.

First off, thank you for actually responding to what I wrote and not some imagined straw man. It is much appreciated and not at all what I've come to expect from inquiring into this subject on Atlas.

My biggest issue with this topic, as I have stated in the past, is the language that people have constructed around it. Words are used interchangeably at certain points (sex and gender) and are later used as diametric opposites. Most importantly, there appears to be no consensus within the trans community on how to apply these terms. Whereas other civil rights movements of the past have had very straightforward, clear-cut messages, the language here often seems designed deliberately to trap people into using the wrong terminology. An example: There is a subset, however small, of the trans community that seeks to abolish the concept of biological sex entirely. I know that these people exist because I recently heard a podcast in which they harangue someone-- a fellow transgender person-- for not agreeing with them on this. So it is frustrating for me to engage with this language when the community itself hasn't even reached a consensus on which words to use and how. It is also frustrating that these various factions of the transgender community don't even seem to acknowledge one another's existence, instead choosing to act as though their interpretation of the vocabulary is the only one that matters.

Take, for example, your comment here. I am aware that not all transgenders elect to get surgery. However, I was just told this earlier in this thread:

Sex and gender obviously have a relationship, statistically speaking- the majority of biological males identify as men and females identify as women. But they're not interwined- you can identify with a gender that isn't usually assigned to your biological sex

Now, what this sounds like to me is that there is indeed a relationship between biological sex and "gender"-- something which, I should add, a portion of extreme gender activists would already disagree on. However, if "masculinity" corresponds to the male biological sex, and "femininity" corresponds to the female biological sex, then which sexes do these other genders correspond to? It sounds to me as though, through this logic, gender is the outgrowth of biological sex as it manifests itself in social roles. But since there are only two biological sexes, where are "non-binary" genders coming from? Again, trans people seem to accept that gender is a binary, because "gender reassignment surgery" only ever alters a man to look like a woman, or a woman to look like a man.

In your explanation, it sounds to me as though "non-binary" applies to anyone whose social expression of themselves does not fall 100% in line with purely masculine or purely feminine traits. But this applies to literally everyone. At that point, you have broken down the word "gender" to the point that it becomes meaningless; every single individual will have their own gender, just as everyone has their own personality. And again, there is a (small) segment of gender activists who are well on their way to believing this. At this point, we are no longer discussing science. This is a terminology invented by a statistically small group of people that has absolutely no practical application. The people who create these sorts of gender classifications are not scientists-- hell, they're not even sociologists. They have no authority on this (or any other) subject.

Anyway... my point, as it always is when I enter into these discussions against my better judgement, is to highlight some major internal contradictions in how gender activists choose to use language. If you'll permit it, I'd like to point out my areas of confusion by contrasting some comments in this thread.

Again, uhhh... no? It's all very consistent and I'm puzzled that it's so hard to understand- trans people don't want to abolish the concept of biological sex and aren't stopping anyone from identifying with the gender that they were assigned to at birth.

People being allowed to fit more comfortable inside the incredibly complex social construct that is gender is a bonus for humanity, because it means more people will be able to be content.

However, one general overlap that happens most of the time is when people "feel" like they were assigned the wrong gender at birth.

Gender cannot be "assigned at birth" and also be a "social construct." Either it is the product of socialization or it is inherent to the individual. Can't be both. Here you are using "gender" as a synonym for "biological sex"-- something I have been raked over the coals for doing in this thread. Perhaps you can imagine my frustration when I am maligned for pointing out these contradictions, even while members of the trans community cannot agree on what these terms mean.

(Credit to Parrotguy here-- not only did he contradict you, but he also managed to contradict himself, and within the same post to boot.)

Most trans people are perfectly comfortable acknowledging their biological sex and don't wish to abolish it, they just also believe that gender isn't intertwined with it.

In the very simplest of terms, gender identity refers to one's perception of their gender. This most often correlates to a person's birth sex, but doesn't always.

You cannot say that gender and sex are two independent concepts and then say that one can "correlate" to the other. If they genuinely have no relationship, there will be no correlation. That is how statistics works. Obviously there is a very tight overlap between the feminine gender and the female biological sex, and the two are very much related. So I don't understand why gender activists insist on parsing out the two when everything about gender identity has deep roots in human biology. You cannot define gender by its relationship to sex while simultaneously arguing that gender is independent of sex.

One of the biggest parts of having an identity is that it's 100% on your terms. Nobody gets to choose what you get to do with your gender except for you.

But wait... I thought gender was assigned at birth? Or was it socially conditioned? But now you're saying it's a form of individual expression? That really doesn't make sense. If gender is the product of nature (or nurture-- you guys still haven't decided on that, it seems), then how can it be self-chosen? See, you don't even know what you're saying here. You've now changed the definition of the word three times over the course of one conversation, and I am no more edified than I was when I first waded into this quagmire. I honestly would like it if the entire trans community would have some sort of constitutional convention, wherein you could settle these definitions once and for all. But until then, do not get mad at me for pointing out the glaringly obvious cognitive dissonance that has become a major (and indeed, necessary) force in your movement.

[John Dule]

Don't have time to respond to the rest of it, but I have to respond to this. When I say "assigned at birth" in reference to gender, I mean that whenever someone is born a biological male or female, they're assigned by society the gender that usually corresponds to it- men to males and women to females. That is an objective fact of what is happening. I don't really understand what you're trying to do here because it was explained a lot already:
When someone is born, they're born either a biological male or a female (or something rare in-between).

The moment they're born, they're assigned by society a gender, and with it come social expectations for how they should perform it. The majority of people are ok-ish with it- they identify with the gender they were assigned to. Some people, a minority that is quite substantial, cannot. It torments them and tears them from within, and they feel strongly like they identify as something else. Many of them realize that they're actually a man or a woman. Some, if it feels right to them, choose to transition to the sex that in the vast majority of cases corresponds to their real gender. Some do not. It's a personal decision. Others do not feel like either a man or a woman, and are thus outside the gender binary. They don't have to transition to the opposite sex, just like trans people who feel inside the binary don't have to transition if they don't want to.

Aha! We might finally be nearing some sort of understanding here. What you are saying is that people are "assigned" a gender role at birth, which may not correspond with their gender identity, a trait that is inborn and inherent to that individual. But you were using the word "gender" as a blanket term for both of these-- I'm sure you can see why I found this confusing, and why careful use of language is important here. In the interest of respecting the vocabulary you're explaining to me, I'm going to be very, very specific about the diction I use from here on out.

You said that people are assigned a gender role by society. That part makes sense; in your particular cultural setting, you are expected to fit into a role that corresponds with your biological sex. However, this once again sounds as though gender is a social construct. This means that gender refers to one's expression of their identity-- wearing dresses/makeup, growing a beard, etc. But if gender is defined relative to social and cultural expectations, then by definition you cannot possess a gender identity at birth. It must be a mutable trait that is shaped over your life, as you learn to either accept or reject gender roles. But this would mean that someone whose gender identity does not correspond with their biological sex-- a transgender person-- was not "born with a female gender identity," because the only way for them to form that identity would be through cultural and social interaction. This effectively means that no one is born trans, which is anathema to the narrative pushed by many gender activists.

Again, this is not an argument that I particularly care to make. Whether gender identity is innate at birth or socially constructed is not important to me, and it doesn't change my belief that people should be allowed to get whatever elective surgery they choose. What I am doing here is following the logical course of your argument as it applies to this issue, and identifying points of conflict between your statements and the statements put forth by gender activists. The point of this is to illustrate to you that navigating this linguistic minefield is not nearly as simple as you pretend it is-- even you and Koopa are making mistakes.

I'm not trans, so I don't understand it as well as Skunk or Koopa do, but if I can understand this fairly simple concept, I'm sure you can too. I mean, really, what's the problem here? What do you find so revolting in these generally accepted concepts? Now, I'm sure there are contradictions within the movement, and I definitely don't agree with some radical activists. But this happens in any movement.

Have I expressed revulsion in this conversation?

[John Dule]

Ah, here is the crux of the big question, which causes all these conflicts and creates toxic groups such as TERFs (who take it and use it to bash trans people). We cannot know for sure how much of it is biological- is there a biological core that influences gender and gendered behaviour, or is it entirely sexually constructed? I'm not an expert, but as far as I know it is generally believed that there is some biological explanation, and some social explanation. Personally, I believe that the reasonable point of view is that humans took a biological core and bloated it beyond its proportions to create the major gender differences in our society. Because in nature, generally, there are differences in behaviour between males and females- it's just that human society is so advanced compared to the other species that we reached the understanding of the concept of gender. What I generally think that we must do about it, is continue the research, and just let people identify with what gender they truly belong to (if any), whether that is a socially constructed gender or it has a biological core, because that is just the only way that they'll feel content.

Look, you don't need to keep reiterating the fact that we should let people live their lives as they see fit. No one is more sympathetic to that argument than I am. If people want to get gender reassignment surgery and start presenting themselves as the opposite sex, I do not recognize anyone's right to stop them. I only start to take issue with these arguments when they begin to affect other people-- in competitive sports, for example, or when a person is tried in the court of public opinion for using the wrong pronoun. At that point, the argument that "people should be able to do whatever they want" is no longer good enough, because you have begun to encroach upon the lives of others. And as much as I'd love to live in my libertarian utopia where no one ever has to interact with anyone else, sometimes our rights do come into conflict with one another. I'd like to have an honest discussion about that without being accused of wanting to take away people's inherent personal freedoms.

To the rest of your comment, I think this really drives home the absurdity of parsing out "gender" as something that is different from "sex." Sex is biological and there are biological foundations for almost all the behavior that you might refer to as "gendered." Society did not arbitrarily decide that men should be in leadership roles, that women should take care of children, or that men should go to war. All of these social norms have deep roots in biology, and I really do not see the point in trying to separate the two from one another as if "gender roles" are somehow entirely independent from the natural differences between the sexes. I agree that we are at the point in our technological advancement where we can potentially move towards abolishing some of these norms (in war, for instance, it doesn't matter whether a man or a woman is piloting the drone). But in doing so, it is worth examining how we got here and what the biological causes of our differences are.

The more you attempt to parse "gender" out as something independent of "sex," the deeper you dig yourself into a linguistic hole that you'll never get out of. There is a reason why a transgender person-- someone who supposedly wants to take on the social roles of the opposite "gender"-- also wants to physically alter themselves so they look as though they were born as a member of the opposite "sex." I understand the necessity for the transgender movement to separate sex from gender; they can't in all good conscience say that they can change their biological sex, so they leave that out of it and focus solely on altering their "gender." That's fine-- it's a free country-- but that logic is incomprehensibly tortured.

Sorry, by revulsion I mean "refusal to understand". I understand it was an attempt to get a more linguistically coherent explanation, though I don't think what I'm saying in this thread is particularly smart or original- it's just an attempt to articulate the basic premise behind mine and many people's view of the need to respect and fight for trans people to be able to identify with their real gender.

Well, in some ways I'm being deliberately obtuse here-- but that's just because I'm trying to get you to explain the language to me as coherently as you can. I think that gender studies, like all academic subjects, has constructed a lexicon that is deliberately impenetrable and difficult to navigate. I wouldn't normally mind-- biology, economics, and political science are all guilty of this as well-- but the difference is that when you misuse a word here, the consequences can include public shaming. I don't like self-righteous mobs. If at all possible, I would like to nip this one in the bud.