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Rewriting Definitions

#1
Zinjanthropos Offline
My wife’s niece and partner in marriage are both female, at least that’s what I was taught. They visited us recently and at that time I was made aware the two of them are non gender now. No problem, knock yourself out. However near the end of the stay one told me the next stop was to watch a gay pride parade, something both identify with. Couldn’t help myself so I asked how can one be gay while being non gender, at minimum they would need to be same sex couple I figured.

Not so fast. Apparently two non genders are also same sex(less) partners, or gay by their definition. Didn’t sound right to me but what do I know? One has had a hysterectomy and the other has given birth but in this world non genders don’t worry about how that defines someone. I sarcastically said there are physically two types of non genders in this world, M & F. That wasn’t received well…lol Personally I think that if your going to do away with gender then the word ‘sex’ also has to go. Keeping Webster’s busy I imagine.
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
I have always suspected problems when we try to attach our identity to a label. We are so much more than any socially functional persona. Just be your unique and quirky self, free of definition and rules. It is ok to not fit neatly into people's objective categories.
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#3
C C Offline
(Sep 1, 2022 05:48 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [...] I sarcastically said there are physically two types of non genders in this world, M & F. That wasn’t received well…lol Personally I think that if your going to do away with gender then the word ‘sex’ also has to go. Keeping Webster’s busy I imagine.


"Gender" is semantically tweaked by a variety of different contexts, and only some affiliate it with biological sex. Starting in the 1950s, left philosophers and researchers incrementally appropriated the word "gender" to signify psychological orientations, social role constructs, etc -- separating it from anatomy and reproduction.

Left crusaders were attracted to the 20th-century view emerging in European philosophy that the world was "socially constructed", because this allowed freedom from a range of strict oppressors, both human (like patriarchies) and non-human (including both the natural world and supernatural religion).

Lots of revisions and re-conceptualizations driven by a focus on oppression.
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#4
confused2 Offline
(Sep 1, 2022 07:01 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I have always suspected problems when we try to attach our identity to a label. We are so much more than any socially functional persona. Just be your unique and quirky self, free of definition and rules. It is ok to not fit neatly into people's objective categories.
I could well be wrong but.. I get the impression that 'Gay pride' parades/marches/days are now events for those who don't fit neatly into people's preconceived ideas of 'normal'. As the definition of 'normal' gets tighter the definition of 'not normal' inevitably gets broader. Transsexuals and 'others' who would previously have flown under the radar are now 'a thing'. Personally I don't begrudge one day a year of celebration of 'otherness'.
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#5
Yazata Offline
I'm resolutely of the belief that that there are two biological sexes, M & F.

There's a small fraction of 1% who have developmental abnormalities in that regard, but that doesn't really contradict the fact of two biological sexes.

Biological sexes are what philosophers refer to as 'natural kinds'. These are distinctions that exist in objective reality such as between the chemical elements. The chemical elements would remain even if all human beings never existed. They were discovered by us, as opposed to having been invented by us and their existence doesn't depend on us or what we think. Even in the absence of human beings, other animals would have their biological sexes. Male and female dogs would still reproduce through intercourse.

And then there's "gender".

'Gender' used to be a linguistic term that referred to the way nouns in many languages are conjugated. Der, Die and Das in German.

Then in the late 20th century, feminists kind of hijacked it to refer to 'socially constructed' aspects of the male-female distinction, such as modes of dress, social roles and so on.

These are what philosophers refer to as 'social kinds'. Money is a social kind since its function is given to it by humans. Money isn't something that exists objectively in reality independently of us. If humans ceased to exist, our coins would just be cryptic little disks of metal.

OK, so far, so good. I can accept the sex/gender distinction as a natural-kind/social-kind distinction and think that sometimes it's valuable to be aware of that.

The problem is that over the last 15 years or so, there has been a concerted attempt to deny the existence of biological sex as a natural kind. Sex is increasingly being reduced to and subsumed by "gender".

When I last visited my HMO hospital for a checkup, I had to fill out a medical history form. But it didn't ask for my sex (M/F) as such forms had done in the past, it wanted to know my "gender". To me the social role I play in society seemed kind of irrelevant if my problem was an enlarged prostate. Medicine is inescapably biological. It's anti-science to deny it.

But that's what it's come to these days, in which we are told that "men can get pregnant", and we are vilified, ostracised and fired from our jobs if we don't immediately behave as if we believe it. (I suspect that very few people really do...)
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#6
Syne Offline
If men could really get pregnant, it'd be a medical miracle...not just an ideological talking point.
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#7
Magical Realist Offline
(Sep 1, 2022 11:11 PM)confused2 Wrote:
(Sep 1, 2022 07:01 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I have always suspected problems when we try to attach our identity to a label. We are so much more than any socially functional persona. Just be your unique and quirky self, free of definition and rules. It is ok to not fit neatly into people's objective categories.
I could well be wrong but.. I get the impression that 'Gay pride' parades/marches/days are now events for those who don't fit neatly into people's preconceived ideas of 'normal'. As the definition of 'normal' gets tighter the definition of 'not normal' inevitably gets broader.  Transsexuals and 'others' who would previously have flown under the radar are now 'a thing'. Personally I don't begrudge one day a year of celebration of 'otherness'.

The trend seems to be more inclusiveness of alternative sexualities under the term "queer."
I personally don't like that word and do not consider myself one of them. But many do and the gay pride parade serves as an occasion to celebrate and affirm the many identities falling under the general acronym LGBTQIA. I'm glad they added the letter A for "asexual" as that most accurately applies to myself. But I still don't want to be identified based on that. I am a many-layered multidimensional whole..not defined in terms of my sexuality or lack thereof.
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#8
C C Offline
(Sep 2, 2022 08:43 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:
(Sep 1, 2022 11:11 PM)confused2 Wrote:
(Sep 1, 2022 07:01 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I have always suspected problems when we try to attach our identity to a label. We are so much more than any socially functional persona. Just be your unique and quirky self, free of definition and rules. It is ok to not fit neatly into people's objective categories.
I could well be wrong but.. I get the impression that 'Gay pride' parades/marches/days are now events for those who don't fit neatly into people's preconceived ideas of 'normal'. As the definition of 'normal' gets tighter the definition of 'not normal' inevitably gets broader.  Transsexuals and 'others' who would previously have flown under the radar are now 'a thing'. Personally I don't begrudge one day a year of celebration of 'otherness'.

The trend seems to be more inclusiveness of alternative sexualities under the term "queer."
I personally don't like that word and do not consider myself one of them. But many do and the gay pride parade serves as an occasion to celebrate and affirm the many identities falling under the general acronym LGBTQIA. I'm glad they added the letter A for "asexual" as that most accurately applies to myself. But I still don't want to be identified based on that. I am a many-layered multidimensional whole..not defined in terms of my sexuality or lack thereof.

Gore Vidal: "Sex is a continuum. You go through different phases along life's way... and if you don't, you've been sort of cheated."

Vidal probably didn't intend that as a prophecy. But the old days of an "other" individual portraying themselves as perpetually/inherently stuck in a particular slot just like absolute heterosexuals -- out of political necessity for social advancement -- are over (or will be when the last of the old guard finally die out).

So I expect LGBTQ will eventually be replaced by "fluidity" or some future trending synonym referring to contingently hopping around on a spectrum of identity orientations over the course of one's lifetime. (Including some transhuman ones that haven't been introduced yet, or are only in precursor stages.) 

The post-op subcategory of the "T" is a possible exception that can't wholly join the fluidity club due to potential limitations on repeated surgery (or the stress and ordeal of that).

But John Varley's novel Steel Beach featured a society biomedically progressed enough that its inhabitants were routinely switching from one sex to another. Naming the protagnonist "Hildy Johnson" was fitting.
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