There are plenty of trans individuals who'd disagree with that. Gender is a made-up concept the same way that 'birds' are a made-up concept - they're a human categorization of actual phenomena.
this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Humans just can’t resist categorizing things with fuzzy borders. Just ask any biologists about taxonomy and you’ll see what I mean.
And there are trans people who believe gender is a social construct too, though. It is an open debate.
I think this is the point. Maybe? Sorting stuff in categories is a human hobby even if the reality doesn't give a shit about categories. See cladistics: we paste labels on beings and say this a species, this is a genus, and we have to arbitrarily choose when a group is neither one or the other, because life didn't evolve following human rules.
Species, as an example, are far from strict and static categories, but such categories are still standard in academia because even in a field as precision-oriented as academic and scientific studies, they ARE still useful reflections of real phenomena.
You can have desires for different things and you can even be attracted to the same gender but creating a new gender is silly. You can be male or female and dress and act how you want for the most part. Gender doesn't need to define you and can be black and white just like your hair color. You are you, not your gender.
Anyway my option isn't meant to offend. If I've upset you I am sorry but I've just seen a lot of the more wild LGBQ+ be a bit to flamboyant in "gender".
Exactly? As in, I identify as gender fluid not because my gender defines me, but precisely because the binary "male" and "female" genders don't directly apply to my identity, so a new term that better aligns with how I feel is useful.
So if it's "silly" to "create" a "new" gender, what do you suggest as an alternative?
Hope this isn't an offensive question to ask - but what do you mean by "how I feel"?
Because, by example, I am a man. I know this because I have the reproductive organs of a man. I am "more manly" than some men, and "less manly" than some other men. But I am a man, regardless of how I feel, dress, act or look.
In my current understanding of gender, being gender fluid would require the hot swapping of your reproductive organs.
So - genuinely (if you want to...) - can you help me understand what you mean by what you said? Perhaps I can become less ignorant without exposing my ignorance to the real world.
100% agree but can never get my point across this nicely then I get banned for a few days
From my experience people who struggle to find there sexual identity tend to get offended easily when you ask basic questions. I honestly don't know much so my questions are out of arrogance.
Seems like a you issue tbh we should all be a bit Kinder don't you agree?
Why do you say that? It's your kind of response that makes me scared to expose my ignorance through fear of being mischaracterised as hateful. So I just live in ignorance, keep my head down and don't learn about other people's perspectives. I'm pretty confident I don't offend anyone...but mostly because I avoid any conversation that involves anything even remotely in this sphear just to ensure I don't accidentally cause offence.
I can’t wait until humanity gets to the point where no one cares about this shit.
May I interest you in the machine cult of Mars?
Gender was invented by Big Bathroom to sell more toilets!
I wish I had big bathroom at home
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I don’t get the gender conversation. Before you discuss, define what gender means. After you defined it, it should be clear how many types there are or can exist.
If you can’t decide on one definition, then make up several. „Genders A“, „Genders B“, …
It should be very simple.
Sex is biology, gender is sociology.
It is the spectrum between feminine and masculine, where we as a society decide which traits fall where. This changes per culture.
Also how much you will earn. I was paid a quarter less than my male colleagues (ICT).
If it changes by culture, then each culture will have their own definition. So if we ask a Texan Redneck and a Swedish Librarian, we will get two very different answers. But they both might be right in their culture.
Culture does not have borders. You and your neighbour have different cultures. So I believe this is nothing you can argue about, unless you specify a definition first. It does not have to be a global definition, it does not have to apply to all people, it doesn’t even have to make sense.
The definition will make it possible to discuss the topic. When the definition is precise, it will be a very short discussion. The interesting part is coming up with that definition and figuring out what aspects you want to include and what you deem not relevant.
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Gender is a bimodal distribution between "dude" and "lady"
People are the gender that they are, and it's arrogant to think that we can tell someone "actually, your experience of your own body is incorrect." If someone says they're one gender, the other, or neither, who the hell am I to tell them they're wrong?
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Yep and I never understood the idea, it just seemed weird to me. People always said to me that you can just feel your gender but I don't feel a gender or know what it would feel like. That's how I found out about being Agender, well it was after I found out about being AroAce and I wondered if the A- prefix could apply to gender, and it does.
I like to think of myself as a pretty open and accepting person but some of the stuff on that site is fucking stupid. Like I totally "get" and respect the whole trans, NB, Agender stuff but I full stop think the anthro and the catgirl and catboy gender stuff is really fucking stupid and it's setting back the real gender movement for trans and NB and agendered people.
Remember kids: you can't transition inherited traits. Gender is not an inherited trait–the reason you're a human isn't because society has arbitrarily put you into the category of human, it's because your parents are humans. Gender isn't inherited. Nonbinary folks can have binary kids. Human folks cannot have cat kids.
I have a friend who's father is in his 50s or 60s and he is like a full on otherkin wolf dude and it's creepy and funny as hell.
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I mean, species are an idea humans made up. See dogs versus dingos.
But it turns out words can mean things?
The problem with idiot bigots is that they're just making mouth noises. The same jackholes who insist men are men and that's that will also have ten thousand fears about random activities and affiliations that make them "less of a man." Pick a lane, fuckwad.
On the other hand - English has only two sets of gendered pronouns. The third choice is not gendered. You don't get to substitute a bad Scrabble hand. Nobody gets their own pronouns... because that's not what pronouns do. Those are just nouns. If it has to be written on a nametag, write your damn name. The parts of speech referring to "yonder rando" are deliberately limited, for cases where you don't know anything about someone beyond looking at them, and don't really need to.
Yonder Rando is my next D&D character
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@hellfire103 What if genders actually have us instead?
@petrescatraian@libranet.de Now we're asking the real questions
There is only one gender
What is it?
Right now it's mine. Y'all can wait patiently for your turn I promise not to hog it
^the^ ^gender^ ^officially^ ^belongs^ ^to^ ^the^ ^state;^ ^I^ ^have^ ^merely^ ^checked^ ^it^ ^out^ ^from^ ^the^ ^tool-share^ ^library^ ^and^ ^must^ ^return^ ^it^ ^in^ ^undamaged^ ^condition^
Ehhh, I get the point, and I know it's exaggerated for the lolz, which it definitely got.
That being said, the fact that gender as a part of language is indeed a construct, the fact that humans have a strong history of making those constructs and organizing around them points to the underlying essence of what gender actually represents does have more of a non ideated origin.
And, generally, for the species as a whole, the binary works for both the body and the mind. The fact that there are a large number of people that don't fall close enough to the ends of the spectrum for it to actually be binary doesn't get rid of the fact that the percentage of people that don't fit the gender norms that are commonly associated with a given "sex" is damn low ratio.
That's why it's vital to protect that minority, mind you. That's why we have to take care of our own, and our own is every human being. I'm just saying that the issues around gender and sex are issues that stem from a pretty small minority. For the rest of the population, gender and sex aren't separate for the individual person.
Which is why so many people struggle to empathize. But I agree, just because most people can walk, doesn't mean we shouldn't build more access ramps.
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God damn biology.
True.
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