pelmut wrote:So which word does describe the innate property determining how the individual feels they fit into society, over which they have no control and which they cannot change? ...and why would there be two words ("sex" & "gender") if they both meant the same thing?
There is no such thing. That "innate property" is pure sophistic rubbish constructed to give certain academics a field to publish and gain tenure in. People have self images, and notions of how they fit into their environements, of course, but the "innate property" idea is a gender mishmosh reification, nothing else.
The two words do NOT mean the same thing. I have never said they did. In English we correlate them, but gender is a property of language not a property (innate or otherwise) of people. You even quoted where I said they were different, then asked that question....
Daryl wrote:In English we assign gender to language terms in an attempt to reflect the actual sex of people: male or female.
pelmut wrote:Your statement is almost accurate, we have attempted to use the word 'gender' to reflect sex - and it doesn't work. Now that we are coming to realise that the two words refer to two different things which are independent of each other, we are gaining a much better understanding of the way things really are. My sex is definitely male and my gender is mostly feminine, I am in no doubt about that and there are thousands of people like me in England alone. Trying to force us to fit into society in a way which we find distressing, simply because our bodies have developed in response to hormones we feel are foreign to us, is no longer considered a proper way to treat people
Oh truly, we have merely "attempted" to use the word "gender" to reflect sex? But we failed? Then explain all the commonly used gendered formalisms. Most folks consider "gender" just another word for "sex". They are wrong, but it's patently untrue that it's been unsuccessful.
And spare me the activist agenda victim stuff, please. We all agree that forcing people into gendered roles and behaviours is not good. That does not mean that gender is a property or possession of people, nor does it make its reification valid, or useful.
"Hormones we feel are foreign to us" sounds like an ideation run amok, a psychological phenomenon not some mysterious "innate" essence at work. People used to feel they had evil spirits in them. Both seemed real to them but were really just ideas they latched on to because any explanation is better than no explanation. That doesn't support the reality of the assertion.
This is the problem with trans and gender activism. It employs post-modern understanding academically, using language as a site of change and struggle and influence, but rhetorically it goes modern (or pre-modern), employing essentialist language and reifications in order to confuse people and propel issues. It is dishonest to its core, despite well meaning sympathetic people being fooled into adopting its theoretical base and becoming the footsoldiers in this fraud of a conflict.
Daryl wrote:Sexually differentiated and enforced roles and behaviours do amount to the ground upon which a struggle for justice and fairness exists, but that is all about rigid role and behaviour expectations, not language. We need to bring down those rigid expectations. Mucking with the language is not doing that; it is avoiding it -- trying to do an end run around the problems with sophistry.
pelmut wrote:I agree that rigid rôle and behaviour expectations are wrong, but the reason this is now being understood as wrong is partly due to the clarity resulting from the recent progress in using language correctly; making sure that "sex" is used where it means biological sex and "gender" is used where it refers to societal interactions. This is not manipulating language to support an agenda, it is using the correct meanings of words in order to clear up the muddle that has made life difficult for so many people for so many years.
The "correct" meaning resting on what authority? The authority of "gender studies" professors and activists? The authority that causes you to call gender an "innate property" of a person, NOT of language terms?
Pick that apart. You said "now being understood"? That's an appeal to authority. The research in that field is almost entirely normative, not empirical. Empirical research is only introduced when it supports a thesis, not for its power to describe observable reality but for its power to influence our perception of reality.
French philosophers are fun. Check out the title on the book that Neo keeps his contraband in near the begining of the first
Matrix: "Simulacra and Simulation", by Jean Baudrillard. That book came out in 1981. No one talked about "transgender" back in those days. There was "transexual" and "transvestite", and that was it. How did "gender the innate property" idea work its way in to our matrix? I can tell you it wasn't the scientific community.
They haven't cleared up any muddle. They have created one. Why? Publish or perish.
Daryl wrote:"I wear a skirt. Refer to me in the masculine. I expect to be treated equally if I seek stereotypically feminine work." Like that, not like "I wear a skirt because I am gender variant x."
No, just no.
pelmut wrote:Fine, you wear a skirt for one reason, I wear it for another.
I doubt that. We both wear them because we want to, and our reasons for wanting to are as complex as flowers, not singular. You just singularise it with "gender innate property", an idea that hasn't existed until fairly recently.
pelmut wrote: The only time a problem will arise is if someone insists that my reason is the same as your or vice-versa. The wrong is coming from ignorance, not from clarifying the fact that two words actually refer to two different things when, traditionally, they have been confused for the same thing.
And there it is: all those who disagree are ignorant (or just wrong, or malevolent). Us, and them.