If gender is a social construct, what about age?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

They would be, like the other person you mentioned, likely a woman for all practical purposes. But as they take rather drastic measures to conform their body and appearance to 'female' or 'male' then I think these definitions that you want to throw out the window mean quite a bit to them as well.

Transwomen aren't women because they don't have XX chromosomes.
But there are people who are women who don't have XX chromosomes.
Well, ok, transwomen aren't women because they didn't grow up as women.
But there are people who are transwomen who are growing up as women.
Well, ok, transwomen aren't women because they undergo medical treatment.

It seems like the ground you're standing on is shrinking -- unless it's multiple posters making the transwomen-aren't-women argument?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They would be, like the other person you mentioned, likely a woman for all practical purposes. But as they take rather drastic measures to conform their body and appearance to 'female' or 'male' then I think these definitions that you want to throw out the window mean quite a bit to them as well.

Transwomen aren't women because they don't have XX chromosomes.
But there are people who are women who don't have XX chromosomes.

No. They aren't women because they have a Y chromosome. If you have a Y chromosome, you are a man even if you cut your nads off, shoot yourself up with crazy industrial-strength female hormones, and suffer from the deeply-held, long-term delusion that you are female.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Of course they do. All people with disabilities and medical conditions are considered people worthy of equal respect. That doesn't mean their condition says anything other than that they have a genetic anomaly. If you have an anomaly in your heart it doesn't speak to a larger question about whether there is a 'right' kind of heart. There is a right kind of heart that functions in an ideal way for human thriving and survival. The same is true for gender/sex. It doesn't mean there is ANYTHING wrong with people with heart defects or gender dysphoria.

Human beings have two legs! Except for the ones who don't.

Humans are bipedal. The occasional human born with some number other than 2 doesn't automatically become a non-human. They are a human with an anomaly. They are part of a bipedal species, even without having 2 legs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They would be, like the other person you mentioned, likely a woman for all practical purposes. But as they take rather drastic measures to conform their body and appearance to 'female' or 'male' then I think these definitions that you want to throw out the window mean quite a bit to them as well.

Transwomen aren't women because they don't have XX chromosomes.
But there are people who are women who don't have XX chromosomes.

No. They aren't women because they have a Y chromosome. If you have a Y chromosome, you are a man even if you cut your nads off, shoot yourself up with crazy industrial-strength female hormones, and suffer from the deeply-held, long-term delusion that you are female.

So in your opinion, Hanne Gaby Odiele isn't a woman?

https://www.glamour.com/story/hanne-gaby-odiele-on-coming-out-as-intersex

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sex is not a social construction. Gender is.

Similarly, age is not a social construction, but youth/middle-age/old age etc. are. That's why we have sayings like "you're only as old as you feel" or "youth is wasted on the young" or "50 is the new 40" or "if you're 55 or better..."

This.

Age group/stages of life are social constructs. You can identify as any age group you please, and people do. There's a helluva difference between a 50 year old dying of COPD and a 50 year old training for their 11th triathlon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Of course they do. All people with disabilities and medical conditions are considered people worthy of equal respect. That doesn't mean their condition says anything other than that they have a genetic anomaly. If you have an anomaly in your heart it doesn't speak to a larger question about whether there is a 'right' kind of heart. There is a right kind of heart that functions in an ideal way for human thriving and survival. The same is true for gender/sex. It doesn't mean there is ANYTHING wrong with people with heart defects or gender dysphoria.

Human beings have two legs! Except for the ones who don't.

Humans are bipedal. The occasional human born with some number other than 2 doesn't automatically become a non-human. They are a human with an anomaly. They are part of a bipedal species, even without having 2 legs.

This is true: The species Homo sapiens is bipedal.

This is not true: Human beings are bipedal. (Most are, some aren't.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here come the social justice warriors

But you're on the side of social injustice?

Good to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Of course they do. All people with disabilities and medical conditions are considered people worthy of equal respect. That doesn't mean their condition says anything other than that they have a genetic anomaly. If you have an anomaly in your heart it doesn't speak to a larger question about whether there is a 'right' kind of heart. There is a right kind of heart that functions in an ideal way for human thriving and survival. The same is true for gender/sex. It doesn't mean there is ANYTHING wrong with people with heart defects or gender dysphoria.

Human beings have two legs! Except for the ones who don't.

Humans are bipedal. The occasional human born with some number other than 2 doesn't automatically become a non-human. They are a human with an anomaly. They are part of a bipedal species, even without having 2 legs.

This is true: The species Homo sapiens is bipedal.

This is not true: Human beings are bipedal. (Most are, some aren't.)

I run flat pedals, but I am thinking of going clipless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Most intelligent people accept the fact that having 2 legs is the normal condition for humans, and anything else is an anomaly. If you need to point out that this is "factually incorrect" (which it is not), then I don't know what else to say.

We expend considerable time and effort to make life easier for humans with many physical challenges, including not having two legs.

We should also structure our society to be decent and humane towards the large number of people who have are born with the chromosomes and genitals of one sex, but who identify strongly with the other, to the point where denying them their identity is painful to them. That includes allowing them to go the bathroom where they feel comfortable (and certainly not boycotting retailers who choose to allow that). I don't think anything else is seriously at issue for most people, unless you are writing some academic dissertation on gender.

Why is it unacceptable to talk about what we should do when the preferences of one group run up against the preferences of another?

Women are a marginalized group who have dealt with centuries of abuse and oppression. The rights that women have achieved since my mother's generation are astonishing. However, we still do not have equality and we are still at significant risk of bodily harm from men.

Yet if I talk about how I'm concerned about transgender girls, with male bodies, wanting to compete against girls, with female bodies, and how unfair that is, I'm saying something that's unacceptable.

Which is ridiculous. Men's and women's sports are sex segregated. The requirements for trans women to compete in college athletics are much more stringent than in high school athletics. If my daughter took testosterone to put herself on a level playing field with a transgender girl, she'd be considered to be doping.

This is ludicrous. Why can't we have a time out and figure out how transgender children can be FAIRLY integrated into youth single-sex sports, instead of just saying it's fine, once again, for male bodies to dominate female bodies?

And what about homeless women, and shelters for women who have dealt with domestic violence? The tendency to accept "self identification" has put vulnerable women in a position of powerlessness against biological men. I'm not saying we shouldn't have facilities for transgender people, they are an at-risk population and need spaces as well. But how does it make sense to force women, yet again, to yield to male dominance?

This isn't an easy answer, and we're only pretending it's so because we expect women and girls to shut up and sit down, like we've been socialized to do our entire lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So, 'dogs have four legs' 'horses have four legs' 'women have a uterus' 'men have a penis' 'chimpanzees have a tail' are all factually incorrect?

Or do we now have to attach the word most/all to any declarative statement?

How do you refer to the qualities of a species globally?

Do you have the faintest idea how common hysterectomies are?

That is kind of my point. Even in cases like that, where there are a significant subset of women who no longer have their uterus, it is still a defining trait of being a woman (or people with an XY chromosome) to have a reproductive system. When you are talking about the human species, how it exists and grows etc etc the two sex structure is essential. And the differences between them are basically all about reproduction when it comes down to it.

So now its not "women have a uterus" but "women have a reproductive system" ? Is a woman with uterus more of a woman than one without? How about a woman who has her uterus removed but keeps her fallopian tubes?

Or how about people just drop this? What is the context where defining who is a woman important? Are you a physician? A statistician? Or are you just trying to justify picking on a group of vulnerable people?

Women are less likely to become CEOs than men.

Isn't it important to be able for us to communicate what we mean by "women" and what we mean by "men" in that case?
Although I suppose if we conveniently say that "women" are no longer a category that can exist because it's just too inexact, we no longer have to worry about centuries of abuse and oppression and we have one fewer minority group. Hey, why don't we do that for ALL groups that have been oppressed and disadvantaged?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[
It is important in the context of sociology/history/biology, basically all of human history. Women are in many many ways defined by their sex organs and reproductive systems. It is what makes us vulnerable, it is the defining rights that are constantly in danger of being stripped from us. And yes some of that is societal, but societal pressures that are inextricably woven into our biology.

I do not pick on transgendered people at all, I think they should be allowed to live their lives however they want to live their lives. Like I said earlier I have a transgendered relative who I treat exactly the way I treated her before her transition. I don't care if they want to call themselves a woman or a man. But they don't get to change the definition of what a woman is or what a man is to address the plight of a small subset of the population with a medical condition. If there was no real difference between men and women then why on earth do transgendered people feel so intensely focused on identifying as one or the other. The very definition of the transgendered condition speaks to the real differences between the sexes. If it was all a bucket of societal changes, then no one would feel so compelled to change their bodies and appearances so drastically.

Let's stop doing that.

Not that it's particularly on-topic, but I do think it's interesting that most of the angst and horror about transgender people seems to be about transwomen (people who were assigned male at birth and who live (or want to live) their lives as women). Nobody is angsty and horrified about transmen (people who were assigned female at birth and who live (or want to live) their lives as men).

Men have not been historically disadvantaged by women.
Men are not abused and killed by women at extraordinarily high rates.

It's nonsensical to think that men would react to women in their spaces in the same way women would react to men in their spaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They would be, like the other person you mentioned, likely a woman for all practical purposes. But as they take rather drastic measures to conform their body and appearance to 'female' or 'male' then I think these definitions that you want to throw out the window mean quite a bit to them as well.

Transwomen aren't women because they don't have XX chromosomes.
But there are people who are women who don't have XX chromosomes.
Well, ok, transwomen aren't women because they didn't grow up as women.
But there are people who are transwomen who are growing up as women.
Well, ok, transwomen aren't women because they undergo medical treatment.

It seems like the ground you're standing on is shrinking -- unless it's multiple posters making the transwomen-aren't-women argument?

You think it is shrinking because you want to have an argument where you poke a million holes into my general premise and feel like you are winning. But you have not encroached whatsoever on my thought process. You are throwing small specific things in to make it seem like there are a million exceptions to my rule but I have never denied that there are exceptions. Just that exceptions do not change the rules.

Trans women who grow up from childhood as women will be women in every meaningful sense. They will never suffer trans discrimination really if their parents let them present from childhood and start hormone therapy etc at a young age. They will go through some medical treatment that other kids won't go through, but they will likely never be mistaken for the other sex. So other than normalizing the acceptability of treatment of transgender thought in childhood what do they need?

Being a woman means having procreation be an essential part of your identity. Whether to have children, can you have children, did anyone take away those choices from you. These are biological issues women face. Some women don't face them, maybe they are born Ivanka Trump or they don't have a uterus or they needed a hysterectomy at age 14 but everyone reckons with their place in that world. Motherhood, no matter what side of it your on, impacts you. These things are foundational to the human experience.

I'm not denying any exceptions, there are exceptions to literally everything. But I am not going to add qualifiers to every sentence I speak to account for them all. That is my point. That there is a 'spirit' of to a definition of a word. And if we water everything down to be inclusive than words stop having meaningful meaning. 'Woman' means something. It means something that transgender women born male feel because they are compelled to try to become 'woman'. If you think it means nothing, what do you think it mean to a transgendered person, male or female?

I just don't understand the argument that gender is a nonexistent societal construct therefore we should be more accepting of transgendered individuals who feel so strongly about gender that they dramatically alter their bodies and appearance in order to conform to those nonexistent genders.

You talk about transgendered individuals not having their autonomy respected or feeling accepted because they won't be accepted by women. By watering down woman you are also taking some identity from people born as women. I know they have privilege and should be I dunno, understanding etc. But to me it feel like calling an apple an orange. Apples and oranges are fruit, they have a lot in common, but they aren't the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Women are less likely to become CEOs than men.

Isn't it important to be able for us to communicate what we mean by "women" and what we mean by "men" in that case?
Although I suppose if we conveniently say that "women" are no longer a category that can exist because it's just too inexact, we no longer have to worry about centuries of abuse and oppression and we have one fewer minority group. Hey, why don't we do that for ALL groups that have been oppressed and disadvantaged?

Generally it's not relevant whether (for example) a woman has a uterus or not. You don't CEO with your uterus, or do science with your uterus. In cases where uterus-having is relevant, I'm fine with something like "people who have a uterus" or "uterus-havers" -- or even "women who have a uterus", although that would exclude men (i.e., transmen) who have a uterus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You talk about transgendered individuals not having their autonomy respected or feeling accepted because they won't be accepted by women. By watering down woman you are also taking some identity from people born as women. I know they have privilege and should be I dunno, understanding etc. But to me it feel like calling an apple an orange. Apples and oranges are fruit, they have a lot in common, but they aren't the same thing.

I am a cisgender woman. I don't think that transwomen being women takes away from my being a woman. I'm sorry that you feel that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Of course they do. All people with disabilities and medical conditions are considered people worthy of equal respect. That doesn't mean their condition says anything other than that they have a genetic anomaly. If you have an anomaly in your heart it doesn't speak to a larger question about whether there is a 'right' kind of heart. There is a right kind of heart that functions in an ideal way for human thriving and survival. The same is true for gender/sex. It doesn't mean there is ANYTHING wrong with people with heart defects or gender dysphoria.

Human beings have two legs! Except for the ones who don't.

Humans are bipedal. The occasional human born with some number other than 2 doesn't automatically become a non-human. They are a human with an anomaly. They are part of a bipedal species, even without having 2 legs.

This is true: The species Homo sapiens is bipedal.

This is not true: Human beings are bipedal. (Most are, some aren't.)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1571302/

Humans are bipedal. Members of the human species may individually have some alternate number of legs, but humans are bipedal.