GC: Thoughts on xenogenders and neopronouns? Why should "male" and "female" not be defined to mean one's gender besides sex? And if gender identity is not a real thing, why do cis, trans, nonbinary, etc people exist who have an internal sense of whether they're male, female, both, or neither?

submitted by MissDimples from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–]cupidscupidity 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Topic 2: The real problem is, upon shifting "male" and "female" to refer to gender identity, are we going to entirely remove words that refer to sex? I think there are disadvantages to that: particularly when it comes to health and medicine, without any distinction between the sexes it could lead to a lot of problems or confusion (e.g. medicine dosage, how diseases affect different sexes differently, sexual health). There's also the gender critical view of natal females experiencing sex-based oppression, and removal of terms to describe sex would make it harder to approach that meaningfully.

I'm a little different from gender critical views here in that I wouldn't necessarily mind a compromise--"male" and "female" can be used for gender identity, as long as we can find new words for sex. Let's just say they're "flim" and "flam", for example. A flim produces sperm and a flam produces eggs, flims and flams have distinct primary and secondary sex characteristics, a flim can't become a flam and a flam can't become a flim, etc.

However, I figure some trans rights activists will still find fault in this kind of compromise, because from what I can tell, the goal isn't really to just free "male" and "female" from sex. Their goal appears to be to make sure that "trans women and cis men" and "trans men and cis women" are never categorized under those categories, and freeing "male" and "female" from sex is simply one step in that process. So categorizing people as immutable "flims" or "flams" really defeats the purpose of their ideology, as I see it.

But it remains that "trans women and cis men" do form a real, observable category, as do "trans men and cis women"--so it only makes sense that the proper words exist to describe them.

(Ironically, the whole use of "menstruators" and other gender-neutral language should be transphobic for the above reasons, and yet it's the trans rights activists that are trying to push such language. I'm curious as to what people here think about this.)

[–]SilverSlippers 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Several years ago "man" and "woman" referred to gender identify while "male" and "female" referred to biological sex. Had it stayed there, I would have had no problem. I don't like the whole constantly moving goal posts part of current 'activism'; its confusing at best and off-putting at worst.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Several years ago "man" and "woman" referred to gender identify

Really? In what countries? And in what years specifically?

[–]SilverSlippers 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

In the USA; granted I was hanging around a super liberal/woke crowd on/around a college campus at the time and have since kind of distanced myself from them. I do think that separate words for gender identity and biological sex are something that we should have. Or perhaps have words for trans people that distinguishes them as trans, i.e. just transwoman or transman. I really don't like how, at least around the really woke people, the terminology for stuff that is considered PC vs. "problematic" keeps changing. Part of why started trying to distance myself from that group, among many other issues that started cropping up.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don't think that amongst the population of the USA as a whole - or in the rest of the Anglophone world - "man" and "woman" ever referred to "gender identity," whatever years we're speaking of.

Most people don't have a gender identity, nor do most of us understand what it's supposed to mean. "Gender identity" always boils down to a preference for the superficial sex stereotypes associated with the opposite sex, and a rejection of the one's associated with one's own sex. Or it could mean rejecting both sets of stereotypes whilst having your own personal clothing/grooming style and your own distinct personality encompassing a wide range of traits and interests - which today is called "non-binary" but in the past just meant you were pretty much like everyone else.

If people who ID as trans want to come up with new names for themselves, I think that's fine. But I'm no longer gonna even go along with the pretense of calling them transmen and transwomen, coz those terms are lies. Man and woman mean adult human male and female. That's it. The trans community should come up with completely new words for themselves. Coz woman and man are already taken.

[–]SilverSlippers 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yeah that's kinda what I've been noticing being outside of the woke campus bubble. I mean they think that everyone has a gender identity. I kinda started leaving after (1) I graduated and got a real job; and (2) Started noticing someone of the really illogical stuff they were doing - like advocating for all sports to effectively be co-ed; and (3) how vicious they got after the whole JKR thing - I've been a fan of hers for a long time and when the whole thing came out I read her article and it was like not offensive or rude or violent at all and they were all acting like it was now unacceptable to continue to read/watch the Harry Potter series.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Glad to hear you're out of that bubble. And that getting a real job and living in the real world still changes - and broadens - one's perspective. Campuses today are closer to Disneyland than to the "real world."

[–]grixitperson 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

"Man" and "woman" also refer to sex, not identity.