On Gender

Clippings from news sources involving fashion freedom and other gender equality issues.
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crfriend
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Re: On Gender

Post by crfriend »

moonshadow wrote:Face it.... computers are binary.... people are not.
Not all of 'em. Analogue computers can be quite common, they're just not in places where we're used to looking, or where we might expect one. A brilliant example is the ignition system on a non-electronic ignition car -- the distributor is a beautiful example of one that mechanically controls the spark timing based on RPM and vacuum level, in real time, and without quantization.
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Re: On Gender

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The jet-type carburettor was a fluidics analogue computer that, under most conditions of engine speed, load and throttle opening, delivered approximately the wrong mixture.
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Daryl
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Re: On Gender

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Dust wrote:
Daryl wrote: What's important is accepting people as they are, full stop. Tom girls, Nancy boys, and all the rest of you unique contributors to "we", just make sure you vote, pay your taxes, and don't send me any spam.
As far as I can tell, we don't even have a good term for boys with stereotypically feminine traits or tendencies. "Tom boys", i.e. masculine behaving girls, are fully accepted and celebrated. The reverse isn't even named, unless you count insults and name calling as naming.

I can't help but wonder if some guys are getting pushed into the whole LGBT thing because at least there they get a recognized label for themselves and some small amount of support...
I've wondered that too, most specifically about the T part. There's really nothing wrong with needing sympathetic allegiances but I when those occupy all the attention and become "the only game in town" they have the potential to be harmful, in fact generators of exclusion themselves.
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Re: On Gender

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Daryl wrote:I've wondered that too, most specifically about the T part. There's really nothing wrong with needing sympathetic allegiances but I when those occupy all the attention and become "the only game in town" they have the potential to be harmful, in fact generators of exclusion themselves.
The 'L', 'G' & 'B' are all sexual preferences and definitely belong together as a group.  The 'T' was added recently and doesn't really fit because it is all about gender and nothing to do with sexual preferences.  The thing that ties 'T' to 'LGB' is the persecution of a minority - the hatred and lies that are currently being directed at 'T' people are the same ones that were being used to persecute 'LGB' people 20 years ago (and non-whites 20 years before that).  Most of the attention is coming from the media feeding off a few noisy agitators - and most of the 'T' people I know would be a lot happier without it.
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Daryl
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Re: On Gender

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pelmut wrote:
Daryl wrote:I've wondered that too, most specifically about the T part. There's really nothing wrong with needing sympathetic allegiances but I when those occupy all the attention and become "the only game in town" they have the potential to be harmful, in fact generators of exclusion themselves.
The 'L', 'G' & 'B' are all sexual preferences and definitely belong together as a group.  The 'T' was added recently and doesn't really fit because it is all about gender and nothing to do with sexual preferences.  The thing that ties 'T' to 'LGB' is the persecution of a minority - the hatred and lies that are currently being directed at 'T' people are the same ones that were being used to persecute 'LGB' people 20 years ago (and non-whites 20 years before that).  Most of the attention is coming from the media feeding off a few noisy agitators - and most of the 'T' people I know would be a lot happier without it.
I will take a moment to quibble about the use of "preferences" in "sexual preferences". I would say "inclinations" because "we are born this way". "Preference" can imply a fairly trivial choice, like a consumer decision, and sexual inclination is far stronger than that.

Quibble aside, yeah, it was added on, and what they had in common was/is the kinds of persecution they faced/face. Even today not all of the LGB movement is happy with the addition of T.

One can always blame the media, but all they need to do is report facts and some of the backlash the T movement is facing will happen without any mouthpieces and "sceptics" and so forth. Some of that backlash can be attributed to the strategists of the T movement themselves, who went for normalising the idea that sex doesn't matter (popular in certain parts of academia but nowhere else) and that identity, using the term "gender" to describe and define it, is all that matters, and that gender fluidity (which is indistinguishable from sexual fluidity without a TON of torturous theory that feels like pure sophistry) should be taught to young children. That was a huge tipping point downwards in support AFAICT. No "hate" needed or added. It feels alarmingly unwise to many if not most people, and that is what drove a lot of people to look for alternative opinions on the issue. It's possible that even Trump's election can be attributed to the overreach of trans strategists and theorists (IMO).
Daryl...
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Re: On Gender

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what about "Q" LGBT Q
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Re: On Gender

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Daryl wrote:gender fluidity (which is indistinguishable from sexual fluidity without a TON of torturous theory that feels like pure sophistry)
This reminds me of an odd conundrum that came up recently. I recently met someone who turns out to be a transman. Pre-surgery, but with enough hormones to make his beard thicker than mine.

Anyhow, he recently updated his facebook status to show that he's in a relationship... with a biological male.

So here's my puzzler: If someone who is biologically female but identifies as male is in a relationship with a biological male... is that a gay or straight relationship?
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Re: On Gender

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Ralph wrote:
So here's my puzzler: If someone who is biologically female but identifies as male is in a relationship with a biological male... is that a gay or straight relationship?
It would be their relationship.
If you want a straight answer, then it would be straight.
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Re: On Gender

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oldsalt1 wrote:what about "Q" LGBT Q
Redundant.
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Re: On Gender

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Daryl wrote:I will take a moment to quibble about the use of "preferences" in "sexual preferences". I would say "inclinations" because "we are born this way". "Preference" can imply a fairly trivial choice, like a consumer decision, and sexual inclination is far stronger than that.
To me the word "inclination" feels weaker, but it does describe the underlying condition better than "preference", which often includes the choices made as the result of that condition and other pressures.  I have been using the term "preference" without questioning it, but perhaps I ought to use "inclination", as it is more accurate when distinguishing between cause and effect.
Daryl wrote:...some of the backlash the T movement is facing will happen without any mouthpieces and "sceptics" and so forth.
I think we need to be clearer about the word "movement".  Originally it just meant a change and there is no doubt that attitudes to transgender are changing - not just those of the public, but those of 'T' people themselves.  Nowadays the word also implies an organised partisan pressure group - which doesn't really exist for 'T' people (despite the claims of the 'anti' brigade).  Occasionally people combine to correct a misguided press comment or speak up against a particularly nasty bit of hate speech, but these are usually just a few individuals who react strongly to one particular thing, not part an organised "movement" promoting a cause.
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Re: On Gender

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crfriend wrote:
oldsalt1 wrote:what about "Q" LGBT Q
Redundant.
I have checked 80 languages and none have redundant starting with a "Q" although I sometimes feel that I am approaching that demographic.
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Re: On Gender

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Ralph wrote:...So here's my puzzler: If someone who is biologically female but identifies as male is in a relationship with a biological male... is that a gay or straight relationship?
The terms "gay" and "straight" assume that sex is binary, gender is binary and sexual inclination is binary - and that gender is the same as sex.  They can only be applied to the specific set of circumstances where all of those things happen to be true, but for many relationships they are meaningless.

The relationship you have described would presumably have to be classified as heterosexual and homogender - but why bother to classify it at all?
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Re: On Gender

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Ralph wrote:
dillon wrote:But there remains more we do not understand about the gender "spectrum" (if I may use that idea) than we do understand.
I'd go so far as to say it's not even a spectrum, because that implies a zero-sum game where various traits make you more masculine/less feminine or vice-versa.

Certainly, there are traits which are historically considered more masculine or more feminine. But suppose you assign a score to each trait (physically aggressive = -5, nurturing = +5, more analytical = -3, more intuitive = +3, etc.) If I have a mix of traits -- some of them very masculine (-5), some very feminine (+5), some slightly masculine (-2 or -1), etc. so the sum of those values adds up to around zero... does that accurately describe me as gender-neutral or androgynous? I'm not *on* a spectrum; I just have some traits that are considered masculine and some that are considered feminine.

Does that distinction make sense, or am I nitpicking over trivial semantics?
I don’t see that gender has all that much to do with one’s hereditary traits. Aspects of personality, perhaps, but even those don’t necessarily betray one’s sense of gender. It’s more a matter of natural self-identity. No rule that says the most physically masculine individual can’t understand himself as partly or wholly female. Or that a man who might be perceived as possessing effeminate personality characteristics or mannerisms cannot identity as totally male.

That people should be accepted as who they are as individuals goes without saying. But at times reasons arise to self-define, if only because of the interest and curiosity of others for whom we care, i.e. to expound on one’s psyche, to deepen personal relations. If you don’t care for anyone else, then maybe you need no vocabulary for self-actualization. If you want to understand others, or help them understand you, then perhaps the concepts of gender and sexuality spectra are helpful. I think perhaps we avoid them because the vagaries of our unique personalities may seem to defy labeling, and being honest with ourselves can be as difficult as confiding our depths to others.
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pelmut
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Re: On Gender

Post by pelmut »

pelmut wrote:
Daryl wrote:I will take a moment to quibble about the use of "preferences" in "sexual preferences". I would say "inclinations" because "we are born this way". "Preference" can imply a fairly trivial choice, like a consumer decision, and sexual inclination is far stronger than that.
To me the word "inclination" feels weaker...
I've just come across a post on another forum where the (American) writer used "inclined" in a context which indicated a definite intention rather than a weak preference, so perhaps there is a subtle difference between the implications of this word in U.S. and U.K. English.
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Re: On Gender

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dillon wrote: The vagaries of our unique personalities may seem to defy labeling, and being honest with ourselves can be as difficult as confiding our depths to others.
Well said dillon. May I contribute...

Words, labels and pigeonholes are a woefully inadequate form of expression between individuals compared to the complexity of the human mind. The brain attempts to make sense of itself and the outside world. Some attributes it was born with like reacting to hunger and pain or even less conscious functions such as breathing and heartbeat. Other lessons are learned such as, if the body stands outside in the rain it will get wet and cold. Ultimately most of its learned choices boil down to binary concepts based on what is good and bad for itself and its body; standing in the rain is bad, seeking shelter is good. Each concept being rewarded with a soup of hormonal activity which helps it to ‘feel’ good or bad about a given situation even to the extent that a person can actually ‘remember with feelings’ how bad it is to be wet and cold.

That’s a pretty simple analogy.
When it comes around to the extremely complex areas of physical and biological attributes of any given body plus the emotional feelings of gender and sexuality the human brain might be forgiven for failing to reconcile its own experience with the outside world. Let alone make an attempt to explain itself to another individual’s brain through the inadequacy of language/words.

Unless or until humans discover the ability to fully blend or integrate thoughts between individuals in a Star Trek kind of a way (ESP?) we are left with only the best form of expression we can muster which is mostly, but not limited to, words. A picture can paint a thousand words and music can bring one to tears and to joy: both can render one speechless. They are examples of sight and sound communication with emotion.
I should venture to suggest that if something ‘feels’ right to an individual(s), that it respects others and is within the law, there can be no harm in it?
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