Male teen and Monsoon, and apparently a discussion about non binary gender and intersex.

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moonshadow
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon, and apparently a discussion about non binary gender and intersex.

Post by moonshadow »

If these were single occupancy stalls, then I don't see what the big deal was...

Ah well... this same exact thing happened to me a long time ago. Yeah, it hurts, and it sucks to be branded a predator simply on account of having male anatomy, but it is what it is. [0] Prejudice is very human, and we see first hand that even living in a progressive area won't shield all of it.

At least he got a response from corporate. The chain I visited just ignored me.

Oh well, I think if I were him I would have just gathered up my dignity and shopped somewhere else, and the next time a brick and mortar store proprietor complains about Amazon, I'd just recall my story.

I've not purchased a single skirt from that store since then, and I've managed perfectly fine.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon, and apparently a discussion about non binary gender and intersex.

Post by STEVIE »

moonshadow wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:20 pm I've not purchased a single skirt from that store since then, and I've managed perfectly fine.
Moon, if you had blasted the poor service onto Facebook, you could have got a free outfit.
My take would be vote with my feet too and taking my hard earned to a worthier cause as well.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon

Post by pelmut »

Stu wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 3:22 pm
pelmut wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 7:00 am
You are denying the existence of these variations and simultaneously confirming them but saying they don't count because they are 'disorders' -- and the reason you think they are 'disorders' is because they don't fit your classification.  You are using a circular argument.
I haven't denied genetic disorders exist.
You haven't but I have.  They are not 'disorders', they are variations; disadvantageous in some circumstances and advantageous in others, that is how evolution works.
The reality of genetics are that there are fundamentally two sexes and someone's sex is determined by their reproductive function.
The reality of evolution is that it can only happen if reproduction is possible, and to reproduce requires one male and one female.
Both of those statements are completely wrong and show a very superficial understanding of biology.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon

Post by Stu »

pelmut wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 6:16 pm
You haven't but I have.  They are not 'disorders', they are variations; disadvantageous in some circumstances and advantageous in others, that is how evolution works.
Evolution never "works" by creating entities that cannot reproduce. That is by definition impossible. Biological evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of a population over succeeding generations. Without the ability to reproduce, there can be no succeeding generations.

And using your definition, Down's Syndrome would just be a "variation". I don't know of any biologist or geneticist who would agree with that claim. The DSDs are considered disorders by professionals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UrwHPXIZdY

They are never advantageous.

The reality of genetics are that there are fundamentally two sexes and someone's sex is determined by their reproductive function.
The reality of evolution is that it can only happen if reproduction is possible, and to reproduce requires one male and one female.
Both of those statements are completely wrong and show a very superficial understanding of biology.
[/quote]

Both of my statements are entirely true and no biologist would dispute them. You won't accept it because you have convinced yourself about what is true to fit your own existing ideological preference. Acknowledging the truth of what I said would cause your underlying beliefs to collapse, but you can produce no reasoned counter-arguments or evidence to rebut my claims. Your only response is to say I am wrong and I don't understand biology.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon

Post by rode_kater »

Stu wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 3:22 pm The reality of genetics are that there are fundamentally two sexes and someone's sex is determined by their reproductive function.
Does that mean that people who are sterile have are neither male or female? That all women over 50 and children under 12 should be considered neuter? I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean.
Stu wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 3:22 pm The reality of evolution is that it can only happen if reproduction is possible, and to reproduce requires one male and one female.
Unless of course you reproduce via asexual reproduction (like apparently California condors), or via surrogacy. This is such an oversimplification of evolution that it's misleading. Evolution is a descriptive model of what we observe in the real world. It's doesn't have any explanatory power why things are the way they are. Any rule you think is hard and fast will be broken somewhere in nature.

We need to deal with real people in the real world, not some hypothetical world where people are divided into nice categories and everything is straightforward.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon

Post by pelmut »

Stu wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 6:28 pm Both of my statements are entirely true and no biologist would dispute them.
I am a biologist and I don't just dispute them, I condemn them as wrong and misleading to others.
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon

Post by rivegauche »

pelmut wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 9:34 pm
Stu wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 6:28 pm Both of my statements are entirely true and no biologist would dispute them.
I am a biologist and I don't just dispute them, I condemn them as wrong and misleading to others.
Thanks Pelmut. Stu seems to misunderstand science and maths but still feels entitled to browbeat those of us who might have some actual education in these fields (not forgetting the actual meaning of the word binary). When it comes to gender the pseudoscience is regularly trotted out against the science. It becomes rather amusing when the creationists attempt to use science to debunk evolution (which is not quite what has been happening here).
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon

Post by Stu »

rode_kater wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 7:54 pm Does that mean that people who are sterile have are neither male or female? That all women over 50 and children under 12 should be considered neuter? I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean.
No, because they have the anatomical structures necessary to fulfil one or other reproductive function assuming they are of the requisite sexual maturity and health.
rode_kater wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 7:54 pm Unless of course you reproduce via asexual reproduction (like apparently California condors), or via surrogacy. This is such an oversimplification of evolution that it's misleading. Evolution is a descriptive model of what we observe in the real world. It's doesn't have any explanatory power why things are the way they are. Any rule you think is hard and fast will be broken somewhere in nature.
Evolution does not operate with asexual reproduction or surrogacy. Offspring will only carry forward characteristics that their biological parents gave them - unless and until a genetic anomaly occurs - which sometimes happens.
[/quote]
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon

Post by Stu »

pelmut wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 9:34 pm I am a biologist and I don't just dispute them, I condemn them as wrong and misleading to others.
You must be a biologist specialising in plants then because you have produced precisely ZERO reasoned arguments or evidence to disprove what I have said.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon

Post by Stu »

rivegauche wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 10:49 pm Thanks Pelmut. Stu seems to misunderstand science and maths but still feels entitled to browbeat those of us who might have some actual education in these fields (not forgetting the actual meaning of the word binary). When it comes to gender the pseudoscience is regularly trotted out against the science. It becomes rather amusing when the creationists attempt to use science to debunk evolution (which is not quite what has been happening here).
Again, no evidence. No reasoning. Nothing. My neighbour is a cattle farmer. He has two kinds of animal - heifers and steers. There is no third sex. He knows which is which and his animals know which they are. Anything else is an aberration.

In this debate, some people have formulated their own theory in order to try to justify their own gender uncertainties and then they try to claim some scientific basis for it. There is no such scientific basis. The natural order when it comes to mammals is that there are males and females and a minuscule proportion of individuals who, either for reasons of a genetic anomaly, or because of their psychology, do not fit into either category comfortably. In the vast majority of cases, those with the genetic anomalies still identify as one or the other. People with Klinefelter's (XXY) usually consider themselves male and those with Swyer syndrome (female XY) consider themselves female. In truth, the chromosome angle is a distraction. The overwhelming majority of individuals who stick the label of being "non-binary" or "gender fluid" have no such biological ambivalences - they are male or female, but have a psychological discomfort with their real sex and no definitive commitment to being the opposite sex. They wish that there was a third option, but there isn't, and wishful thinking doesn't make it true. So, when someone like me comes along and confronts them with the truth, they just accuse them of ignorance, being scientifically illiterate or whatever, but with absolutely no reasoned counter-argument or evidence. It's like trying to argue with religious zealots: they are simply not receptive to reason that conflicts with their faith.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon, and apparently a discussion about non binary gender and intersex.

Post by rivegauche »

Science is not a faith, it is the opposite of a faith. The definition of binary is that there are only two options. As there are evidently more than two variations on the sex chromosomes, a binary situation cannot exist. As well as the variations on X and Y, there are more complex intersex individuals. These people exist, and their existence is evidence on the situation being non-binary. So even before we get to self identity, there is actual evidence that biological sex is non-binary. Stories from a neighbour with livestock don't contradict this, no matter how many stories there are.

Getting sex tangled up in evolution is all very well for livestock or fruit flies. Once you start messing about with this in people you get into dangerous territory - eugenics. Humanity has devised ways of acquiring characteristics and ideas and passing them on to the next generation without sexual reproduction. No other species has writing or literature or science journals. Once you mix sex up with this you again get into dangerous territory. The use of early computers owes a huge debt to Alan Turing, who was gay. An ingenious way of guiding torpedoes was developed in WWII and went on to for the basis of the way mobile phones work. It wasn't actually used in the war because the US navy would not dream of using something invented by a mere woman (Hedy Lamarr). Using conventional approaches to sex is thus a dead end for humanity because it denies so many talents and opportunities. Biological sex is not the only part of gender identification but the FACT is that it is non-binary despite the BELIEF of some that it is binary. The existence of non-binary individuals proves the pseudoscientists wrong. In a binary system all XY births are male. They are not - there are XY people who look physically female and identify as female. Then there are androgen insensitive males - the list goes on. More and more biological non-binary people getting in the way of your lovely binary delusion. The binary believers are suffering from White Swan Syndrome - all swans they have seen are white, so black swans cannot exist. Yet they do. Scarily, many of the binary promoters are fixated on the Bible, or the parts of it they find convenient to observe. Man and Woman created he them. Only he didn't - the non-binary ones don't get a mention. Until the mid 19th century fossils were 'evidence' of the flood and dinosaurs didn't make it on to the ark. Please spare us the pseudoscience. What the pseudoscientists should do is ask themselves why they are so fixated on humanity being binary - why is this so important to them? Up to this point I have only mentioned self identity in passing. There is growing evidence that society is pushing this too hard and that some young people who are merely questioning their gender are assumed to want it re-assigned. But there are many, many people out there who genuinely feel their body does not represent the way they feel. That must be desperately frustrating in itself, but is rendered infinitely more distressing by the intolerance of the Bible-thumpers (forgiveness and tolerance?) and others who want them kept in the captivity of the gender they were assigned at birth. This binary fixated society is not a nice place. The binary fixated people are really putting their hands over their ears and refusing to hear the voices of the science or the voices of the non-binary themselves.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon, and apparently a discussion about non binary gender and intersex.

Post by Fred in Skirts »

OK! I have been reading this mess for long enough now it is time to ask the real question!!
What has this conversation accomplished other than make people mad?

You are trying to turn a sows ear to a gold purse. People will believe what they perceive as the truth no matter what anyone else says. So far I have not seen anything that resembles fact in this argument. It has all been hearsay and no actual facts have been presented one way or the other.

Just my two cents........
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon, and apparently a discussion about non binary gender and intersex.

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

Fair enough Fred.

As I have said before, find the January 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine that was devoted to discussions of the many facets of gender. One or more of the articles made the points that much of our personality is determined by genes other than the ones that determine our anatomy and by the interaction of our mother’s biochemistry and our fetus’s. While we’re at it, our mothers’ biochemistry is significantly affected by all of the elements of her living situation. Hence, the infinite variation of masculinity and femininity amongst our fellow human beings.

One of the earlier proofs of the complexity of the development of gender, as opposed to sex, was the much higher percentage of gay males born to British mothers during the WWII Blitz. The scientists who studied that phenomenon determined that the stress induced in those mothers by the Blitz affected the prenatal biochemical interaction such that their sons’ psychological “firmware” destined them to be gay.

Why I, and I presume Pelmut and Rive_Gauche, are so adamant on these points is so that readers of this website have a more accurate understanding of themselves and other folks who don’t comfortably fit the Gender Binary.

Stu implied that the 3 of us and anyone else who agrees with our perspective are clinging to a system of irrational beliefs akin to religious zealotry because he, mistakenly, believes our understanding of human nature lacks a scientific foundation. We submit that he and the other adherents to the Gender Binary are the irrational zealots because our beliefs are based on the latest science and theirs aren’t.

But to be clear, this is a fit subject for discussion— debate if you will— in this forum because, we submit, it goes to the heart of why at least some, if not all, of us are drawn to wearing skirts and dresses.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon

Post by pelmut »

Stu wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 12:55 pm
pelmut wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 9:34 pm I am a biologist and I don't just dispute them, I condemn them as wrong and misleading to others.
You must be a biologist specialising in plants then because you have produced precisely ZERO reasoned arguments or evidence to disprove what I have said.
Thirty years experience in an animal research establishment with a department specialising in animal genetics.  It doesn't need arguments, just facts, most of which have been available to everyone (including you) for the past 50 years at least.  If you think you are right, what have you got to lose by checking the facts?
There is no such thing as a normal person, only someone you don't know very well yet.
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Re: Male teen and Monsoon, and apparently a discussion about non binary gender and intersex.

Post by crfriend »

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 8:12 pmBut to be clear, this is a fit subject for discussion— debate if you will— in this forum because, we submit, it goes to the heart of why at least some, if not all, of us are drawn to wearing skirts and dresses.
And on that note I'll weigh in.

It is quite possible that I am the outlier here -- a gender-normative heterosexual male who is perfectly happy with his lot in life save for what's on offer in the men's section for style choices. "Just sayin'."

There is also no reason whatsoever to resort to name-calling. So, please knock that off.

From a purely mechanical biological view, Stu has it correct as far as it's understood by the geneticists. However, that's an observational and mechanistic view from prior centuries and fails to take behaviours into account which absolutely come into play with creatures as complex as humans (and likely several other species as well, but there's no concrete proof yet). Some behaviours can be split out into "gender-normative" and some cannot.

Making matters worse, "gender-normative" has been shifting over the years where the basic mechanics hasn't (and really can't given what it is). What it "means to be a man" has changed radically in the past 50 years -- and not for the better. I've written on this topic in the past, so won't belabour that here, but the range of what's considered "acceptable" behaviour for men has shrunk significantly in the past few decades. When I was younger, I was known as a bit of a "sensitive one" who made liberal use of emotion in my thinking; now I'm regarded as being deeply into the trans-* range where there's not been any change in me whatsoever and I remain a happy cis-normative male and am trying to fan the embers of a potential romance with a delightful lady-friend of mine. I do not agree with the modern classification in the least.

Behaviours are mostly learnt things; humans seem to lack "instinct" in the way that simpler species have it "hard-wired" in. Some is, else reproduction in humans might have stopped by now as confusion and disgust sets in. It's unlikely we can attribute most of that to biology, although there are hints that there are biological influences.

Genetic disorders are just that -- a deviation from the normal state of affairs that enables the mechanics. There is no reason to denigrate those folks who have them because it's not their fault. Most genetic defects (caused by errors in replication at or shortly after fertilisation in sexual reproduction) are usually lethal. If not lethal, they tend to be debilitating at best. Beneficial ones are extraordinarily rare -- and those are the ones that evolution actually relies upon. Random mutations after birth usually manifest as cancers and can range from slow-moving and mostly annoying to lethal depending on malignancy; others simply go unnoticed.

Note that we do not look down on those with cancers but tend to those with birth "defects". This is silly. So, let's not do it.

No more name-calling. Let's keep it civil and cordial where we can.
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