From my simple viewpoint, all this transmania is just society indulging a sexual fetish based on stereotypes. I mean, there’s a trans bloke working in one of our local charity shops, he’s 6’5” tall and always kitted out in fishnet tights, stilettos, sequins and false eyelashes. The “real” women shoppers are sensibly dressed in jeans, trainers, big coats with pockets and not much make-up, because it’s Tuesday afternoon. If he genuinely feels he is a woman, why not dress like one? He wants to be a drag Queen really, nothing wrong with that but call it what it is.
I wouldn't say 'all' but that's certainly a large component.
If you look at some of these people who claim to be women, you do have to wonder what kind of messed-up conception of what a woman "is" they have in their heads, don't you?
Agreed Fiona. As if they are forever stuck in the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show', which, while somewhat fun at the time, is not a movie set that I would want to live in. Creatures of the night.
I don’t think anybody owes it to the wokies and genderists to make a greater effort at defining gender rigorously than they have done themselves – and as can be seen in examples such as the new Irish law quoted in this post, they take no serious interest in the project whatsoever. Therefore the Riggerousness attempted in today’s Pokery leaves me a little cold.
But it’s RR’s time and title, so he can knock himself out trying, and I’ll await a future post with more than one lousy equation in it.
As for “gender” itself (if we’re not going to leave it in grammar and linguistics where it belongs), the fundamental reality is that genderism requires us to simultaneously see a “transwoman” as a man (whence the “trans”) and not a man (because of the Great Commandment). So there’s a 2 + 2 = 5 right at the base of the ideology (as with Ingsoc), and with a contradiction as a foundational axiom, anything can be pseudo-proved and nothing disproved.
What remains is the bullying, hypocrisy, diffidence, cruelty, despair, and hatred of life – and I think those merit the close examination, not the meaningless ostensible tenets of “gender.”
I kind of agree with you here and kind of don't. The point isn't really about gender and its ridiculous "definition" but about how the models of the world we work with can have damaging impacts.
Yes, there's a whole level of cruelty and authoritarian nastiness that is associated with the gender cult, but unless we demolish the whole foundation upon which that is built we're not going to effect any permanent change for the better. We'd be still at the level of each 'side' calling each other nasty.
The whole rotten and incoherent ideological edifice has to go because it is (a) nonsensical and (b) damaging our kids
And adults too. Not to mention its appallingly homophonic nature, which is something I didn't go into.
I think it is interesting to point out that one woman, Norah Vincent, who wrote the 2006 book Self Made Man, (which I have read) about passing as a man for 18 months to see 'what male life' was like-- ended up dying a decade or so later by assisted suicide. Her first book was a best seller. Her second book, Voluntary Madness, I have yet to read, about her decade long struggle with depression afterwords. I think that says a lot, right there. Messing with your bodies biology, no matter the reason, can have tragic outcomes. https://medium.com/bitchy/what-norah-discovered-by-disguising-herself-as-a-man-for-18-months-5fd044d9634c
The other day a young lady wearing a pin above her left breast that read “My pronouns are he/him” held a door for me. (Chivalry not being dead, I guess.) God forgive me, I looked at that damn button and I laughed. I should be angry , I know, or saddened, but I’m afraid I’’ve surpassed those stages of grief. (Tangentially this is kind of like I laugh at the “someone put a baby in my body without my consent” pro abortion advocates of something they call bodily autonomy. I can’t even claim that it’s a grim laugh. It’s like I am genuinely tickled by illogic.)
It's funny, sad, infuriating, and pointless all at the same time.
It's like I wrote the other day - we (well, many) have forgotten just how *ridiculous* it all is. I used the example of the reaction, even just 10 years ago, one would have had if your boss told you to wear a pronoun badge.
I think humour and laughter are sometimes the best way to proceed - but we do have to be careful not to stray into 'hate speech' if you live in a place which gives legal weight to this, yet another, ridiculous notion.
I saw an article recently about a poor child named Avery Jackson who appeared on the cover of a National Geographic about ten years ago. Google will find it.
The child had expressed some gender confusion in his early years, so his insane and obsessive mother jumped on the trans bandwagon and put him through the whole puberty blockers followed by castration regime.
The mother is still out there, spouting insane gibberish. Her son is now a chemically modified eunuch who will never be able to have children.
This is the level of insanity we're up against...people who will castrate their sons in support of their beliefs.
This shit is hard to comprehend. I feel like we are struggling against some combination of Biblical demons, Tolkiens Orcs and Rowlings Dementors, disguised as parents who claim the moral high ground.
Since it's a social issue, not a natural science-one, a way to view it is to look for what is spontaneously occurring and what must be provoked into existence, as well as what is repressed "out of" existence.
Also, something to look for is where in this cycle were at:
Please note that Repressed/Mandatory is the same thing here; whatever isn't mandatory is repressed and whatever isn't repressed is mandatory. The Golden Mean to be, is somewhere between Tolerated (meaning "allowed to exist") and Accepted (meaning "can be seen in/spoken about in public); all else always leads to some form of oppression or other.
By using a completely social key as the one sketched out above, you never run the risk of winding up in the Gordian knot of definitions, semantics, and such on any social topic since they simply don't matter. A very simple practical example would be to allow boys and girls to play rugby together, and not worry about the rest. And if people want a Women's League, a Men's League, a Lanscashire Plumber's Union League, or a Polari League - so what? Let them, and let them always carry their own cost. You want to see them play? Go pay for a ticket and attend games.
We know beforehand due to the differences between boys and girls - no matter why those differences are there - that most girls will not be wanting to play rugby with the boys, nor will a competitive team living on their ability want to include someone just because of their sex organs, pigmentation or whether or not they drink milk while eating meat or not.
Much simpler, but there's no slot for grifters, agony aunts, controllomaniacal politicos or urinalists-cum-demagogues in that, and with no profit for any one individual actor it will not happen on its own.
But it can happen if it is spoken about as the natural and good way of being, by enough people. To a normal human brain, signal strength and frequency of a message equals truth.
That's a cool way of looking at it - but I would take (some) issue with your initial predicate here.
It is both a social *and* a scientific issue. Scientific claims are being made (the 'innateness' of something called gender, for example). In particular, the whole ghastly "science" of gender affirming care is more than just a 'social' thing - there are scientific claims made about its necessity and appropriateness and also its efficacy.
I would argue that we must first get the science *right* and then see what societal implications that may have.
You will never get the science right, unless that "right" is something that serves those driving this on for whatever reason, that's the problem. Since the issue is ideological (social) that takes precedence in how anything and everything is understood and applied.
A parallel would be if we had (seemingly popular but in reality not) movement for freckled redheads having the right to pilot helicopters.
Notice I put "having the right" in there: that's social, not natural. "Rights" exist as an effect of human conscious decision-making, only, and have no real effect on any natural science at all. Since "right" is put as paramount and unalienable, all science will instead automatically become subservient to the "right", trying to make that "right" real.
A very stark comparison from history his Heinrich Himmler and his obsessive searching for scientific proof for a hypotheses he and his compatriots in the SS Ahnenerbe had dreamed up themselves: they /used/ science to try and prove a social idea. They did not use science to see what was what, and then form an idea from that.
Exactly what many social movements post-WW2 has done: all science is harnessed to provide proof for their hobby-horse of an idea, be it related to sex (either meaning) or economy: witness all the Prize-winning economists cherry-picking real-life examples to suit their hypotheses, since economy is a social science utilised to justify an ideological position on resources, usage of, et cetera.
You could provide proof positive that "trans" is a social contagion, a mental disorder, akin to the plague of "repressed memories" of the 1960s and 1980s, and it wouldn't matter. Because the whole thing is based on the idea of having rights, not being correct.
Therefore, to make sure the rights of freckled redheads are met by society, how helicopters function, are steered, and how air-traffic is controlled must be reworked in toto. Or else we violate the rights of freckled redheads.
You can even bring it down to micro-level interaction: A woman wants a deck built next to the house. A man tries to explain to her why the spot she's chosen is sub-optimal. She is arguing based on what she /wants/ and that want is paramount; he is arguing based on what can be based on the facts-as-are, because those do not care about what you want, since they are things, not people.
And until she relents and learns to put her will secondary to material realities, the problem will remain. Alternatively, he can build according to her will and it will go bad, and then she will blame him anyway, and he will have to re-do it correctly, and then also get blamed for not doing it right from the start. By her. Feel free to swap sexes any way you please, I'm using stereotypes because they are true, but there are plenty of men (Kir Starmer f.e.) who function like that too.
Yes - what you say here is true. I was expressing a view on what *should* happen and not what *does* happen in practice.
I could, and do, make the same argument for climate 'science' - it's something we need to get right (or more right) before embarking on the craziness. But we're not doing that at all because of, largely, emotive things.
The climate crisis folk are trying to build their deck, so to speak, in the wrong place - and lots of people are trying to tell them it's not going to work too well.
Ah yes - I'm so hardwired into the "what actually happens"-pattern of thinking that I often forget that thinking in terms of what ought - in alla senses of ought - to happen is something I too can do.
There's something to say about marriage there, and parenting too, how it teaches men and women both to understand better both ways of thinking and how to combine them for optimal results.
In my experience, men tend towards least possible effort for greatest possible yield, in all endeavors (granted, this is as broad-strokes as it gets, definitions-wise) whereas women tend towards closest to what they envision no matter the actual cost. Combined the right way, you get minimum cost of resources for closest to what you want by cutting to the bone of the Need-Want-Able to-axis.
Combined the wrong way, you get gender-magic, climate "science", and Covid-measures.
German is widely regarded as being the most specific language.
There is no differentiation in German between sex and gender.
It has only ever been gender, but in the meaning of sex at birth only, only.
So the challenge of and undertaking there by the loonies is not just to promote the usage of a different word over another, but to ascribe a totally different meani g to an existing one, which is probably why the confused and crazies are particularly confused and aggressive there, whenever it comes to this current lunacy.
Kinda think you're making heavier weather out of the dichotomy between sex and gender than is necessary. Try thinking of "gender" as sexually dimorphic personality and behavioural traits:
Those traits are the dependent variables, and the sexes are independent ones. For example, there are significant differences in the degree of "agreeableness" between men and women -- women tend to be more agreeable than men, but that doesn't mean there aren't some men who are more agreeable than the average woman, nor that there aren't some women who are very much less agreeable than the average man. Agreeableness is then a more "feminine" "gendered" trait. See this joint probability distribution:
And there are probably dozens if not hundreds of similarly sexually dimorphic "gendered" traits that are generally not unique to either sex, but only more typical of one than the other. Why we can talk about "gender non-conformance", about masculine women and feminine men who are still females and males, respectively.
You might also take a gander at this post by an evolutionary psychologist, Paula Wright, on "Ruff Sex and Sneaky Fuɔkers":
Wright: "The males of this species are highly unique as they appear to have three different “genders” which, unlike other species, do not appear to be triggered by environmental inputs. They are genetic. Lank calls these three morphs: the Territorial aka Independent; the Wingman aka Satellite; and the female mimics aka Faeder:
Crucially, these ‘genders’ are all heterosexual males who use differing strategies to reproduce with females. The female mimics are not trans lesbians. They are small, low status, low testosterone heterosexual males, tricking females to get sex. They are sneaky fuckers (SN’s). The scientific name for the SN reproductive strategy is kleptogamy, meaning stolen mating."
While Wright emphasizes that those morphs, those "genders" are entirely genetic, the same principle holds for behavioural and personality traits: some variations by sex which are not always unique to one sex or the other.
ICYMI, my elaborations on those themes:
"A Multi-Dimensional Gender Spectrum; Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics"
Erm, yes - but all you're talking about here are sex-based differences in behaviour which do fall on a distribution (or a spectrum, if you like). These differences in humans might arise from biology or social conditioning or some interplay between the two.
What you're presenting here is not the view of gender taken by the activists - and it's this, not some synonym for sex-based behavioural differences, that I'm taking issue with.
Gender and gender 'identity' are taken to be much more than this by the activists - and indeed legal systems have started to pretend that gender, not sex, is the primary characteristic. Yet gender itself is a vague and poorly-defined concept. Talking about the 'gender' of animals is an absurdity because there's no equivalent to human 'social construction' in the animal kingdom.
> "These differences in humans might arise from biology or social conditioning or some interplay between the two."
Sure. Nature and nurture and combinations of both. That are not joined at the hip with our sexes -- i.e., our abilities to produce large gametes or small ones.
> "What you're presenting here is not the view of gender taken by the activists ..."
So what? Deepak Chopra has his own idiosyncratic definitions and interpretations of quantum mechanics. You're unlikely to give much credence to him on that score.
You have to start by steelmanning the concept, by seeing what are the scientific justifications and interpretations -- and models -- for those sexually dimorphic traits. You might take a gander at your own British Medical Journal for a decent kick at the kitty:
BMJ: "Sex and gender are not synonymous. Sex, unless otherwise specified, relates to biology: the gametes, chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive organs. Gender relates to societal roles, behaviours, and expectations that vary with time and place, historically and geographically. ...."
Bit fuzzy around the edges but a useful starting point. And see the late great US Justice Anton Scalia:
Scalia: “The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”
But "gender identity" is something of a different kettle of fish since it compounds those sexually dimorphic traits with subjective assessments of them. One way of getting a handle on them, if a somewhat tenuous one, is by seeing it as analogous to the concept of "personal identity". Paraphrasing the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP] on the topic:
SEP [paraphrased]: "Outside of philosophy, [gender identity’] usually refers to [sexually dimorphic personality traits] to which we feel a special sense of attachment or ownership. Someone’s [gender identity] in this sense consists of those [feminine and masculine personality traits] she takes to 'define her as a person' or 'make her the person she is', and which distinguish her from others."
But I kinda think you're missing Paula Wright's point and mine with this bit of yours: "Talking about the 'gender' of animals is an absurdity because there's no equivalent to human 'social construction' in the animal kingdom."
Maybe moot whether there are personality differences between males and females of other species, but Wright was simply pointing to a sexually dimorphic trait in birds and calling those "genders" -- you might note she put scare quotes around the word. But there doesn't have to be the same degree of sexual dimorphism, or to be due to the same causes -- nature or nurture -- for those differences by sex to exist, and to be called sexual dimorphisms. You might take a look at the Wikipedia article on the topic, even the first paragraph or two.
Sure I could take any one of a number of more sensible *attempts* to define gender, but if they're not the ones causing the current problems, then what would be the point?
If Chopra's nutty views on QM became more prevalent I'd certainly have a bit of a go at them
Kinda think you're barking up the wrong tree. Seems the best way of turning the transloonie tide is to show that the basic concept of gender has some merit and utility but that the scientifically untenable variations are no better than quack medicine.
For example, you say "Yet gender itself is a vague and poorly-defined concept". So why don't you try coming up with a more precise and scientifically justified definition for that concept? Particularly in drawing a clear distinction -- as did the BMJ and Scalia -- between sex (reproductive abilities and properties) and gender (the psychological traits typical of but not unique to members of different sexes)?
In which case it necessarily follows that some boy wanting to wear a dress may well have a more "feminine gender", or a more "feminine gender identity", but that it is barking mad, a medical scandal of the first order, to argue or suggest that he should mangle his genitalia into some ersatz Frankensteinian replica of those of actual females (sex).
Kinda think you're going off the rails because various transloonies talk about some guy's "female gender identity". Whatever he means by "female" in that case is clearly not what is meant by biologists in their use of the term. There's no way in gawd's green earth that that guy will ever qualify as a female (sex) since he doesn't have, won't ever have, the ovaries that are more or less the sine qua non for membership in that category.
What you are arguing for (and what the more sensible attempts at definition are trying to do) is nothing more than using the word gender to mean sex-based stereotypes (or if you don't like the word stereotype then we could replace it with tendencies).
That's pretty close to the original conception of the word. If it had stayed like that we wouldn't be having the serious problems we're having today.
But 'gender' has taken on a much more integral role in today's "understanding" of the word. Look at NdGT talking about how someone can feel 80% like a woman on one day. And even more seriously one's gender is said to be a real concrete thing completely distinct from one's sex - and that it takes precedence over sex as a way of structuring society and writing laws.
The whole trans mess has arisen because of this kind of confusion of the terms sex and gender. Instead of talking about personality *traits* and using 'gender' as a shorthand synonym for those when they can be 'gendered' to some extent (i.e. tendencies or stereotypes), gender is given some fundamental significance and is a protected 'characteristic' in many places. Under the old understanding of gender this would be like defining a set of behavioural traits (which are not in any case 'universal' and can differ from society to society) as 'protected'.
There's little point my lone voice crying in the wilderness trying to 're-define' what gender is - it's a fool's errand. The important thing is to demonstrate why the *current* use of the word 'gender', as used by the activists and in an educational setting, is damaging and not fit for purpose.
Rudolph: "... nothing more than using the word gender to mean sex-based stereotypes ..."
So what? Are you going to insist that the French stop using the word "chien" for "dog"? If some, if many people want to use "gender" for sexually dimorphic personality traits then that isn't what is "problematic". It's the claim -- by some -- that, as you put it, "it takes precedence over sex".
But I don't think you can cut those doing so off at the knees unless you can show that it is, at best, no more than those sexually dimorphic personality traits. From which follows the reductio ad absurdum of arguing that, in effect, there should be separate sports leagues for the introverts and the extroverts -- risible from the get-go. Ministry of Silly Walks, Part Deux.
Rudolph: "... And even more seriously one's gender is said to be a real concrete thing completely distinct from one's sex ..."
Same thing as the above -- it it true or not that personality traits are "real concrete things separate from one's sex"? And that there are differences in those psychological traits, on average, between men and women? I really think you should take a close look at that 4th Wave Now article I'd linked to before:
You're a clever fellow Rudolph -- generally speaking, in any case ... 😉🙂 Yet, as I've argued before, you seem to unable to appreciate the difference between dependent variables -- personality traits, AKA genders -- and sexes -- i.e., having gonads of either of two types, at least to a first approximation. And how the former tends to correlate, to a greater or lesser extent, with the latter.
That's how so many people, quite reasonably, talk about feminine men and masculine women, about their "gender non-conformance". The concept has some utility which you apparently insist on throwing out with the bathwater because some people have made a fetish out of that bathwater -- so to speak.
Rudolph: "The important thing is to demonstrate why the *current* use of the word 'gender', as used by the activists and in an educational setting, is damaging and not fit for purpose."
Quite agree with you -- 100%. But I don't think that totally rejecting the more scientifically tenable definitions is helping very much. Particularly when other reputable sources ostensibly on "our side" -- like Scalia, and the BMJ, and even Genspect, from your neck of the woods (Ireland) -- are using "gender" in those ways. For example, see this oldish version of Genspect's "Gender Framework", particularly section 1.2 (Theories of Gender), and Section 7 (Glossary & Useful Terms):
That's a 2023 version which they seem to have taken off-line, possibly because I gave them a bad time because of some sloppy and incoherent definitions, and because they probably have a newer version in the works. But at least it was something of reasonable starting point.
Try building on what others have built instead of rejecting it out of hand and without much if any justification. Particularly when their definitions hold some water and provide some illumination.
From my simple viewpoint, all this transmania is just society indulging a sexual fetish based on stereotypes. I mean, there’s a trans bloke working in one of our local charity shops, he’s 6’5” tall and always kitted out in fishnet tights, stilettos, sequins and false eyelashes. The “real” women shoppers are sensibly dressed in jeans, trainers, big coats with pockets and not much make-up, because it’s Tuesday afternoon. If he genuinely feels he is a woman, why not dress like one? He wants to be a drag Queen really, nothing wrong with that but call it what it is.
I wouldn't say 'all' but that's certainly a large component.
If you look at some of these people who claim to be women, you do have to wonder what kind of messed-up conception of what a woman "is" they have in their heads, don't you?
Agreed Fiona. As if they are forever stuck in the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show', which, while somewhat fun at the time, is not a movie set that I would want to live in. Creatures of the night.
😂
I like that description of some of them - it's pretty ghastly to see
I don’t think anybody owes it to the wokies and genderists to make a greater effort at defining gender rigorously than they have done themselves – and as can be seen in examples such as the new Irish law quoted in this post, they take no serious interest in the project whatsoever. Therefore the Riggerousness attempted in today’s Pokery leaves me a little cold.
But it’s RR’s time and title, so he can knock himself out trying, and I’ll await a future post with more than one lousy equation in it.
As for “gender” itself (if we’re not going to leave it in grammar and linguistics where it belongs), the fundamental reality is that genderism requires us to simultaneously see a “transwoman” as a man (whence the “trans”) and not a man (because of the Great Commandment). So there’s a 2 + 2 = 5 right at the base of the ideology (as with Ingsoc), and with a contradiction as a foundational axiom, anything can be pseudo-proved and nothing disproved.
What remains is the bullying, hypocrisy, diffidence, cruelty, despair, and hatred of life – and I think those merit the close examination, not the meaningless ostensible tenets of “gender.”
I kind of agree with you here and kind of don't. The point isn't really about gender and its ridiculous "definition" but about how the models of the world we work with can have damaging impacts.
Yes, there's a whole level of cruelty and authoritarian nastiness that is associated with the gender cult, but unless we demolish the whole foundation upon which that is built we're not going to effect any permanent change for the better. We'd be still at the level of each 'side' calling each other nasty.
The whole rotten and incoherent ideological edifice has to go because it is (a) nonsensical and (b) damaging our kids
And adults too. Not to mention its appallingly homophonic nature, which is something I didn't go into.
I think it is interesting to point out that one woman, Norah Vincent, who wrote the 2006 book Self Made Man, (which I have read) about passing as a man for 18 months to see 'what male life' was like-- ended up dying a decade or so later by assisted suicide. Her first book was a best seller. Her second book, Voluntary Madness, I have yet to read, about her decade long struggle with depression afterwords. I think that says a lot, right there. Messing with your bodies biology, no matter the reason, can have tragic outcomes. https://medium.com/bitchy/what-norah-discovered-by-disguising-herself-as-a-man-for-18-months-5fd044d9634c
Do you think it was her attempt to 'live as a man' that led to her suicide?
That's a bit scary - and sad
The other day a young lady wearing a pin above her left breast that read “My pronouns are he/him” held a door for me. (Chivalry not being dead, I guess.) God forgive me, I looked at that damn button and I laughed. I should be angry , I know, or saddened, but I’m afraid I’’ve surpassed those stages of grief. (Tangentially this is kind of like I laugh at the “someone put a baby in my body without my consent” pro abortion advocates of something they call bodily autonomy. I can’t even claim that it’s a grim laugh. It’s like I am genuinely tickled by illogic.)
It's funny, sad, infuriating, and pointless all at the same time.
It's like I wrote the other day - we (well, many) have forgotten just how *ridiculous* it all is. I used the example of the reaction, even just 10 years ago, one would have had if your boss told you to wear a pronoun badge.
I think humour and laughter are sometimes the best way to proceed - but we do have to be careful not to stray into 'hate speech' if you live in a place which gives legal weight to this, yet another, ridiculous notion.
I saw an article recently about a poor child named Avery Jackson who appeared on the cover of a National Geographic about ten years ago. Google will find it.
The child had expressed some gender confusion in his early years, so his insane and obsessive mother jumped on the trans bandwagon and put him through the whole puberty blockers followed by castration regime.
The mother is still out there, spouting insane gibberish. Her son is now a chemically modified eunuch who will never be able to have children.
This is the level of insanity we're up against...people who will castrate their sons in support of their beliefs.
This shit is hard to comprehend. I feel like we are struggling against some combination of Biblical demons, Tolkiens Orcs and Rowlings Dementors, disguised as parents who claim the moral high ground.
The image of Mother and Avery, now a they/them, sorta says it all. Mom's eyes look deranged to me, fanatical. Scary. https://medium.com/belover/has-trans-kid-star-avery-jackson-detransitioned-dfa716fca583
Thanks for the reminder of this 'event' LSWCHP. Best from Oregon
I saw that too. It was so sad.
Since it's a social issue, not a natural science-one, a way to view it is to look for what is spontaneously occurring and what must be provoked into existence, as well as what is repressed "out of" existence.
Also, something to look for is where in this cycle were at:
Repressed -> Tolerated -> Accepted -> Promoted -> Mandatory
Please note that Repressed/Mandatory is the same thing here; whatever isn't mandatory is repressed and whatever isn't repressed is mandatory. The Golden Mean to be, is somewhere between Tolerated (meaning "allowed to exist") and Accepted (meaning "can be seen in/spoken about in public); all else always leads to some form of oppression or other.
By using a completely social key as the one sketched out above, you never run the risk of winding up in the Gordian knot of definitions, semantics, and such on any social topic since they simply don't matter. A very simple practical example would be to allow boys and girls to play rugby together, and not worry about the rest. And if people want a Women's League, a Men's League, a Lanscashire Plumber's Union League, or a Polari League - so what? Let them, and let them always carry their own cost. You want to see them play? Go pay for a ticket and attend games.
We know beforehand due to the differences between boys and girls - no matter why those differences are there - that most girls will not be wanting to play rugby with the boys, nor will a competitive team living on their ability want to include someone just because of their sex organs, pigmentation or whether or not they drink milk while eating meat or not.
Much simpler, but there's no slot for grifters, agony aunts, controllomaniacal politicos or urinalists-cum-demagogues in that, and with no profit for any one individual actor it will not happen on its own.
But it can happen if it is spoken about as the natural and good way of being, by enough people. To a normal human brain, signal strength and frequency of a message equals truth.
That's a cool way of looking at it - but I would take (some) issue with your initial predicate here.
It is both a social *and* a scientific issue. Scientific claims are being made (the 'innateness' of something called gender, for example). In particular, the whole ghastly "science" of gender affirming care is more than just a 'social' thing - there are scientific claims made about its necessity and appropriateness and also its efficacy.
I would argue that we must first get the science *right* and then see what societal implications that may have.
You will never get the science right, unless that "right" is something that serves those driving this on for whatever reason, that's the problem. Since the issue is ideological (social) that takes precedence in how anything and everything is understood and applied.
A parallel would be if we had (seemingly popular but in reality not) movement for freckled redheads having the right to pilot helicopters.
Notice I put "having the right" in there: that's social, not natural. "Rights" exist as an effect of human conscious decision-making, only, and have no real effect on any natural science at all. Since "right" is put as paramount and unalienable, all science will instead automatically become subservient to the "right", trying to make that "right" real.
A very stark comparison from history his Heinrich Himmler and his obsessive searching for scientific proof for a hypotheses he and his compatriots in the SS Ahnenerbe had dreamed up themselves: they /used/ science to try and prove a social idea. They did not use science to see what was what, and then form an idea from that.
Exactly what many social movements post-WW2 has done: all science is harnessed to provide proof for their hobby-horse of an idea, be it related to sex (either meaning) or economy: witness all the Prize-winning economists cherry-picking real-life examples to suit their hypotheses, since economy is a social science utilised to justify an ideological position on resources, usage of, et cetera.
You could provide proof positive that "trans" is a social contagion, a mental disorder, akin to the plague of "repressed memories" of the 1960s and 1980s, and it wouldn't matter. Because the whole thing is based on the idea of having rights, not being correct.
Therefore, to make sure the rights of freckled redheads are met by society, how helicopters function, are steered, and how air-traffic is controlled must be reworked in toto. Or else we violate the rights of freckled redheads.
You can even bring it down to micro-level interaction: A woman wants a deck built next to the house. A man tries to explain to her why the spot she's chosen is sub-optimal. She is arguing based on what she /wants/ and that want is paramount; he is arguing based on what can be based on the facts-as-are, because those do not care about what you want, since they are things, not people.
And until she relents and learns to put her will secondary to material realities, the problem will remain. Alternatively, he can build according to her will and it will go bad, and then she will blame him anyway, and he will have to re-do it correctly, and then also get blamed for not doing it right from the start. By her. Feel free to swap sexes any way you please, I'm using stereotypes because they are true, but there are plenty of men (Kir Starmer f.e.) who function like that too.
Yes - what you say here is true. I was expressing a view on what *should* happen and not what *does* happen in practice.
I could, and do, make the same argument for climate 'science' - it's something we need to get right (or more right) before embarking on the craziness. But we're not doing that at all because of, largely, emotive things.
The climate crisis folk are trying to build their deck, so to speak, in the wrong place - and lots of people are trying to tell them it's not going to work too well.
Ah yes - I'm so hardwired into the "what actually happens"-pattern of thinking that I often forget that thinking in terms of what ought - in alla senses of ought - to happen is something I too can do.
There's something to say about marriage there, and parenting too, how it teaches men and women both to understand better both ways of thinking and how to combine them for optimal results.
In my experience, men tend towards least possible effort for greatest possible yield, in all endeavors (granted, this is as broad-strokes as it gets, definitions-wise) whereas women tend towards closest to what they envision no matter the actual cost. Combined the right way, you get minimum cost of resources for closest to what you want by cutting to the bone of the Need-Want-Able to-axis.
Combined the wrong way, you get gender-magic, climate "science", and Covid-measures.
German is widely regarded as being the most specific language.
There is no differentiation in German between sex and gender.
It has only ever been gender, but in the meaning of sex at birth only, only.
So the challenge of and undertaking there by the loonies is not just to promote the usage of a different word over another, but to ascribe a totally different meani g to an existing one, which is probably why the confused and crazies are particularly confused and aggressive there, whenever it comes to this current lunacy.
Another article getting it:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/10/no_author/stop-using-the-word-gender/
Kinda think you're making heavier weather out of the dichotomy between sex and gender than is necessary. Try thinking of "gender" as sexually dimorphic personality and behavioural traits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism
Those traits are the dependent variables, and the sexes are independent ones. For example, there are significant differences in the degree of "agreeableness" between men and women -- women tend to be more agreeable than men, but that doesn't mean there aren't some men who are more agreeable than the average woman, nor that there aren't some women who are very much less agreeable than the average man. Agreeableness is then a more "feminine" "gendered" trait. See this joint probability distribution:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joint_probability_distribution_by_sex_and_agreeablenes.jpg
And there are probably dozens if not hundreds of similarly sexually dimorphic "gendered" traits that are generally not unique to either sex, but only more typical of one than the other. Why we can talk about "gender non-conformance", about masculine women and feminine men who are still females and males, respectively.
You might also take a gander at this post by an evolutionary psychologist, Paula Wright, on "Ruff Sex and Sneaky Fuɔkers":
Wright: "The males of this species are highly unique as they appear to have three different “genders” which, unlike other species, do not appear to be triggered by environmental inputs. They are genetic. Lank calls these three morphs: the Territorial aka Independent; the Wingman aka Satellite; and the female mimics aka Faeder:
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F727d7ba5-5687-48e6-a9b4-276d2d1ffdb5_279x161.png
Crucially, these ‘genders’ are all heterosexual males who use differing strategies to reproduce with females. The female mimics are not trans lesbians. They are small, low status, low testosterone heterosexual males, tricking females to get sex. They are sneaky fuckers (SN’s). The scientific name for the SN reproductive strategy is kleptogamy, meaning stolen mating."
https://paulawright.substack.com/p/ruff-sex-and-sneaky-fukers
While Wright emphasizes that those morphs, those "genders" are entirely genetic, the same principle holds for behavioural and personality traits: some variations by sex which are not always unique to one sex or the other.
ICYMI, my elaborations on those themes:
"A Multi-Dimensional Gender Spectrum; Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics"
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/a-multi-dimensional-gender-spectrum
Erm, yes - but all you're talking about here are sex-based differences in behaviour which do fall on a distribution (or a spectrum, if you like). These differences in humans might arise from biology or social conditioning or some interplay between the two.
What you're presenting here is not the view of gender taken by the activists - and it's this, not some synonym for sex-based behavioural differences, that I'm taking issue with.
Gender and gender 'identity' are taken to be much more than this by the activists - and indeed legal systems have started to pretend that gender, not sex, is the primary characteristic. Yet gender itself is a vague and poorly-defined concept. Talking about the 'gender' of animals is an absurdity because there's no equivalent to human 'social construction' in the animal kingdom.
> "These differences in humans might arise from biology or social conditioning or some interplay between the two."
Sure. Nature and nurture and combinations of both. That are not joined at the hip with our sexes -- i.e., our abilities to produce large gametes or small ones.
> "What you're presenting here is not the view of gender taken by the activists ..."
So what? Deepak Chopra has his own idiosyncratic definitions and interpretations of quantum mechanics. You're unlikely to give much credence to him on that score.
You have to start by steelmanning the concept, by seeing what are the scientific justifications and interpretations -- and models -- for those sexually dimorphic traits. You might take a gander at your own British Medical Journal for a decent kick at the kitty:
BMJ: "Sex and gender are not synonymous. Sex, unless otherwise specified, relates to biology: the gametes, chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive organs. Gender relates to societal roles, behaviours, and expectations that vary with time and place, historically and geographically. ...."
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n735
Bit fuzzy around the edges but a useful starting point. And see the late great US Justice Anton Scalia:
Scalia: “The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep511/usrep511127/usrep511127.pdf
But "gender identity" is something of a different kettle of fish since it compounds those sexually dimorphic traits with subjective assessments of them. One way of getting a handle on them, if a somewhat tenuous one, is by seeing it as analogous to the concept of "personal identity". Paraphrasing the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP] on the topic:
SEP [paraphrased]: "Outside of philosophy, [gender identity’] usually refers to [sexually dimorphic personality traits] to which we feel a special sense of attachment or ownership. Someone’s [gender identity] in this sense consists of those [feminine and masculine personality traits] she takes to 'define her as a person' or 'make her the person she is', and which distinguish her from others."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/#ProPerIde
But I kinda think you're missing Paula Wright's point and mine with this bit of yours: "Talking about the 'gender' of animals is an absurdity because there's no equivalent to human 'social construction' in the animal kingdom."
Maybe moot whether there are personality differences between males and females of other species, but Wright was simply pointing to a sexually dimorphic trait in birds and calling those "genders" -- you might note she put scare quotes around the word. But there doesn't have to be the same degree of sexual dimorphism, or to be due to the same causes -- nature or nurture -- for those differences by sex to exist, and to be called sexual dimorphisms. You might take a look at the Wikipedia article on the topic, even the first paragraph or two.
Sure I could take any one of a number of more sensible *attempts* to define gender, but if they're not the ones causing the current problems, then what would be the point?
If Chopra's nutty views on QM became more prevalent I'd certainly have a bit of a go at them
Kinda think you're barking up the wrong tree. Seems the best way of turning the transloonie tide is to show that the basic concept of gender has some merit and utility but that the scientifically untenable variations are no better than quack medicine.
For example, you say "Yet gender itself is a vague and poorly-defined concept". So why don't you try coming up with a more precise and scientifically justified definition for that concept? Particularly in drawing a clear distinction -- as did the BMJ and Scalia -- between sex (reproductive abilities and properties) and gender (the psychological traits typical of but not unique to members of different sexes)?
In which case it necessarily follows that some boy wanting to wear a dress may well have a more "feminine gender", or a more "feminine gender identity", but that it is barking mad, a medical scandal of the first order, to argue or suggest that he should mangle his genitalia into some ersatz Frankensteinian replica of those of actual females (sex).
Kinda think you're going off the rails because various transloonies talk about some guy's "female gender identity". Whatever he means by "female" in that case is clearly not what is meant by biologists in their use of the term. There's no way in gawd's green earth that that guy will ever qualify as a female (sex) since he doesn't have, won't ever have, the ovaries that are more or less the sine qua non for membership in that category.
Once again I would ask what would be the point?
What you are arguing for (and what the more sensible attempts at definition are trying to do) is nothing more than using the word gender to mean sex-based stereotypes (or if you don't like the word stereotype then we could replace it with tendencies).
That's pretty close to the original conception of the word. If it had stayed like that we wouldn't be having the serious problems we're having today.
But 'gender' has taken on a much more integral role in today's "understanding" of the word. Look at NdGT talking about how someone can feel 80% like a woman on one day. And even more seriously one's gender is said to be a real concrete thing completely distinct from one's sex - and that it takes precedence over sex as a way of structuring society and writing laws.
The whole trans mess has arisen because of this kind of confusion of the terms sex and gender. Instead of talking about personality *traits* and using 'gender' as a shorthand synonym for those when they can be 'gendered' to some extent (i.e. tendencies or stereotypes), gender is given some fundamental significance and is a protected 'characteristic' in many places. Under the old understanding of gender this would be like defining a set of behavioural traits (which are not in any case 'universal' and can differ from society to society) as 'protected'.
There's little point my lone voice crying in the wilderness trying to 're-define' what gender is - it's a fool's errand. The important thing is to demonstrate why the *current* use of the word 'gender', as used by the activists and in an educational setting, is damaging and not fit for purpose.
Rudolph: "... nothing more than using the word gender to mean sex-based stereotypes ..."
So what? Are you going to insist that the French stop using the word "chien" for "dog"? If some, if many people want to use "gender" for sexually dimorphic personality traits then that isn't what is "problematic". It's the claim -- by some -- that, as you put it, "it takes precedence over sex".
But I don't think you can cut those doing so off at the knees unless you can show that it is, at best, no more than those sexually dimorphic personality traits. From which follows the reductio ad absurdum of arguing that, in effect, there should be separate sports leagues for the introverts and the extroverts -- risible from the get-go. Ministry of Silly Walks, Part Deux.
Rudolph: "... And even more seriously one's gender is said to be a real concrete thing completely distinct from one's sex ..."
Same thing as the above -- it it true or not that personality traits are "real concrete things separate from one's sex"? And that there are differences in those psychological traits, on average, between men and women? I really think you should take a close look at that 4th Wave Now article I'd linked to before:
https://4thwavenow.com/2019/08/19/no-child-is-born-in-the-wrong-body-and-other-thoughts-on-the-concept-of-gender-identity/
You're a clever fellow Rudolph -- generally speaking, in any case ... 😉🙂 Yet, as I've argued before, you seem to unable to appreciate the difference between dependent variables -- personality traits, AKA genders -- and sexes -- i.e., having gonads of either of two types, at least to a first approximation. And how the former tends to correlate, to a greater or lesser extent, with the latter.
That's how so many people, quite reasonably, talk about feminine men and masculine women, about their "gender non-conformance". The concept has some utility which you apparently insist on throwing out with the bathwater because some people have made a fetish out of that bathwater -- so to speak.
Rudolph: "The important thing is to demonstrate why the *current* use of the word 'gender', as used by the activists and in an educational setting, is damaging and not fit for purpose."
Quite agree with you -- 100%. But I don't think that totally rejecting the more scientifically tenable definitions is helping very much. Particularly when other reputable sources ostensibly on "our side" -- like Scalia, and the BMJ, and even Genspect, from your neck of the woods (Ireland) -- are using "gender" in those ways. For example, see this oldish version of Genspect's "Gender Framework", particularly section 1.2 (Theories of Gender), and Section 7 (Glossary & Useful Terms):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/185Jwdli5fe47C6TqKNhIijSp5HzsKn-4/view?usp=sharing
That's a 2023 version which they seem to have taken off-line, possibly because I gave them a bad time because of some sloppy and incoherent definitions, and because they probably have a newer version in the works. But at least it was something of reasonable starting point.
Try building on what others have built instead of rejecting it out of hand and without much if any justification. Particularly when their definitions hold some water and provide some illumination.