More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonconfor

Clippings from news sources involving fashion freedom and other gender equality issues.
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crfriend
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

Post by crfriend »

Caultron wrote:Let me try again. I don't know how many would survive unmolested, but I would hope it's no more likely for transwomen than for anyone else, which would optimally be zero.
I believe in this instance, Pelmut is using the term "unmolested" in its widest and most unencumbered meaning [0]. The sad fact is, however, that trans-women are far more likely than trans-men to suffer indignity and malice. Even the police get in on the act with at least a couple of shootings, but those may have been instances of "suicide by cop"; this is never reported in the press, nevermind social media. Of course we hope for zero, but in the current climate is that even possible?

Nobody even notices trans-men as they simply represent the extremely butch end of the so-called "feminine spectrum". Highly effeminate men, however, are almost universally shunned as being "sissies" and frequently come in for ridicule, harassment, or worse. It's the old double-standard, of course. Is it right? Of course not. Are there any moves afoot to change society's perceptions [1] on the matter? Sadly, no, at least seemingly in the USA; if anything, attitudes seem to be hardening not softening, and we have an economic melt-down and the current political climate that's retrenching back into the 1950s further complicating the matter.

So, back on topic, are "more than a quarter of California teens gender non-conformant"? What measures are we using to define "conformant"? Are we seeing the same issue that we're currently dealing with where a vast number of children are "diagnosed" as "on the autistic spectrum" where they weren't before because the definitions have changed and because of confused legal buffoonery "autistic" kids now enjoy advantages over their supposedly "normal" peers?


[0] One source I have on hand states it as, "annoy especially by improper or rough handling". I tend to use it as "hassle, bother, or otherwise interfere with, with malice of forethought".
[1] Criminalising behaviour in this regard is likely the wrong avenue as "Joe Six-pack" is going to look at it as the creation of yet another "protected class" and rebel against it (he being entirely unprotected). What needs to happen is gentle education and familiarization of the subject so bad behaviour in that regard becomes unthinkable.
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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pelmut wrote:Ask if you would feel more comfortable with yourself if you had been born female; I don't mean whether you would have had an easier or more interesting life, but who you feel you really should be. If the honest deep-down answer is 'no', you aren't transgender. (By the way, you don't need to tell anyone the answer.) The thing which clinched it for me was realising that all my childhood heroes had actually been the heroines of the books or plays, they were the people I identified with.
At first I started to answer this question to the affirmative, however I then realized that it would have mostly been for having an easier and more interesting life. With that in mind, I can say that I believe I'm okay just being me. Sure there are a few things I don't like about being male, having testicles in a very vulnerable place that's easy to injure ranks among my dislikes of being a man, however on the flip side, I don't have to deal with monthly periods, so I suppose it's six some, half dozen the other.

However, simply transitioning into the female gender without undergoing the full sex change leaves the testicle issue in place. Going full board with a sex change would mean no man parts to worry about AND no periods! The best of both worlds.... but who can afford it?? :eye:

If I were born female, I'd probably be a fem-nazi, as I don't like being submissive to people, especially men. The thought of having some redneck husband that expects me to be barefoot and pregnant all the time does not carry much for me. I'd probably be a lesbian. Looking at things through that lens actually gives me somewhat of a different perspective on what life might be like for a typical woman. Interestingly, though they can wear whatever they want, it does seem like there are still doors they can't open even today.

So yeah, I guess I'm happy just being a liberated man.. a.k.a. a male who's not afraid to be as feminine as he (I) wants to be. Granted I seemed to have shot myself in the foot in certain social situations (family, friends, employment, etc), but I can easily enough slip on the trousers and "play the man" when needed to move my life forward. They're just clothes after all, it's not like they're glued to my body.

All that said,
Caultron wrote:Let me try again. I don't know how many would survive unmolested, but I would hope it's no more likely for transwomen than for anyone else, which would optimally be zero.
The U.S. is FAR from a trans-woman utopia. Life is MUCH easier for trans-men than trans-women.
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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Interesting reading it again; it asks how they think others would describe them. A lot of people think being sensitive, quiet, gentle, imaginative and artistic are typically female attributes, hence a male portraying these would be considered a gender non-conforming male. It probably has less to do with wanting to vary one's gender and more to do with challenging the gender stereotype.
I wish 100% of Australian male teens would stop conforming to the typical Aussie male stereotype. A lot are breaking away but it is disturbing how many perpetuate it.
Quote from https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/qv4m ... ralian-men:
" Much has been made of the toxic masculinity that forms the bedrock of Australia's national identity. How it has created generations of emotionally-stunted men seemingly forbidden from accessing their inner selves, and addressing the issues therein. We know where the rift between macho ideal and stark reality leads: domestic violence, misogyny, homophobia, racism, suicide.
The bloke is a myth and peak blokeyness is, in turn, unattainable. ..................In short, the Aussie bloke archetype is **** and needs rebranding."
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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Thanks for that link, Anthony. It says much that needs hearing, not just in Oz but wherever toxic machismo has taken root.

I've maintained for years that if one strips away men's ability to possess and use emotion, then you're stripping away their very humanity. Without emotion -- the ability to feel; the ability to be sensitive; the ability to have empathy -- we become very much less than fully human. Yes, we can be highly efficient at the office, or lethal on the battlefield, but what does it do to us in domestic and public settings? Oz has "Crocodile Dundee", the US as the "Marlborough Man", and the Brits (I suppose) have James Bond -- but all of these are fictional characters and all of them two-dimensional and if extrapolated into real life, quite unlikely to be able to flourish.

Men do much of this to themselves to be sure, but women play a large role in the debacle as well by habitually selecting the most macho guy they can -- and then wonder why they find themselves in abusive relationships (which can go both ways, I'll add). Caring, sensitive, and thoughtful guys are all too often either cast aside or never seriously considered in the first place. We can't do anything about the latter issue, but we can certainly do something about the first; we can stop the continual and incessant competition, over anything and everything, and compete according to our needs. We can help build others by improving others' lives. Instead of telling a pal who's down on his luck to "Man up", we should instead offer compassion and aid.

Does being compassionate and thinking denote weakness? I posit not; if anything it's more manly than "being a bloke" because it shows that one has no fear of being able to be that way.

Merry Christmas, lads. May the New Year bring joy and prosperity!
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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denimini wrote:Quote from https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/qv4m ... ralian-men:
" Much has been made of the toxic masculinity that forms the bedrock of Australia's national identity. How it has created generations of emotionally-stunted men seemingly forbidden from accessing their inner selves, and addressing the issues therein. We know where the rift between macho ideal and stark reality leads: domestic violence, misogyny, homophobia, racism, suicide.
The bloke is a myth and peak blokeyness is, in turn, unattainable. ..................In short, the Aussie bloke archetype is **** and needs rebranding."
Vice is a ghastly, misandric site and it is deeply hypocritical. The very expression "toxic masculinity" is a stick the feminazis use to beat men while portraying women as perpetual victims and men, and non-feminist women, should reject it. It is sexist just as it would be racist to refer to "toxic blackness" when alluding to the higher proportion of black people arrested for certain kinds of crime. It is not their "blackness" which makes them offend and it's not our natural masculinity which makes some men commit domestic violence. When it comes to domestic violence, research has shown that it is not a gendered crime; both sexes commit it and I have yet to see evidence that males are any more racist than females.

I have not been to Australia, but there is a macho culture among many Australian men that I have detected and that's hardly surprising having regard to the history of the country. Just three or four generations ago, Australians were to some extent pioneers and toughness was needed to survive and there is always a strong imperative for clear gender roles in such societies. Australia is now modern, developed nation and some of the macho culture will naturally tone down as more people become sophisticated city dwellers. But this is can not be, and must not be, forced upon them by a feminist lobby which doesn't just hate so-called "toxic" masculinity - it despises all masculinity.

So, when they talk about "re-branding", they mean on their terms, i.e. men having to be what they say men should be.
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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pelmut wrote:
Wonderful Electric wrote:Gender is a social construct. A decade from now we will see that there was a gender revolution.
Strictly speaking, gender is how the individual feels they fit into society, it is an innate property over which they have no control and which they cannot change.
I don't agree with that definition though I recognise that it is being asserted and taught as such in parts of the academy. I don't recognise the authority of those doing this. They are manipulating language to support an agenda, and an unwise one at that.

So no, not "strictly speaking".

Gender is not real so it cannot be an innate property of anything. In French, objects are assigned genders holus bolus, in response to some aesthetic notions about them. Cats are feminine and dogs are masculine, etc.. In English we assign gender to language terms in an attempt to reflect the actual sex of people: male or female.

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.

"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.
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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crfriend wrote:Instead of telling a pal who's down on his luck to "Man up", we should instead offer compassion and aid.
True, but sometimes compassion and aid come in the form of the right message, and "man up" can be exactly that, at times.

Interestingly that phrase (and also "grow a pair") is now almost gender neutral. It can be used on women with very little cognitive dissonance taking place for anyone. Some slippage is happening in the other direction too. "Let your feminine side out a bit" would not be taken as an affront to dignity by most men today, and women would approve easily.

On the subject of suffering and compassion, I was going to post a video link here but I think it'll be more appropriate in Off-Topic, so that's where I'm heading...
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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I'll just tell you that if you had of asked me a year ago about gender I would have disagreed with Daryl. However I seemed to have gravitated to this position, and he explains my sentiment better than I ever could.

I've often said here that gender and gender roles appear to be arbitrary. I also wonder if animals of the wild really do have gender? (outside of what humans apply to them)

They only area I differ with Daryl is I do recognize the authority, as I am but a small man and powerless to stop it. It would be like pissing in the wind.

So I do acknowledge the transgender-agenda even if I don't necessarily subscribe to it myself. In a way, I would never say that somebody doesn't have the "right" call call themselves whatever they want, be it a man, woman, or anything else. I just don't want to be boxed in or pigeonholed, thus I rebuke all labels regarding who or what I am. Biologically I am a male of the human species. Anything past that is just what makes me "me" and nothing more.

In the long run I'm hoping that gender just goes away. I don't like how my anatomy dictates what I'm allowed to wear, or how I'm allowed to conduct myself in the social scene.
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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moonshadow wrote:In the long run I'm hoping that gender just goes away.
And that seems to be what "gender non-conforming" means... so yeah... hear hear!
-Andrea
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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moonshadow wrote:
moonshadow wrote:In the long run I'm hoping that gender just goes away.
And that seems to be what "gender non-conforming" means... so yeah... hear hear!
Yeah, here here!

(I don't mind gender hanging around, but it should be defanged and declawed at least.)
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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Daryl wrote:
pelmut wrote:
Wonderful Electric wrote:Gender is a social construct. A decade from now we will see that there was a gender revolution.
Strictly speaking, gender is how the individual feels they fit into society, it is an innate property over which they have no control and which they cannot change.
I don't agree with that definition though I recognise that it is being asserted and taught as such in parts of the academy. I don't recognise the authority of those doing this. They are manipulating language to support an agenda, and an unwise one at that.

So no, not "strictly speaking".
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?
Daryl wrote:In English we assign gender to language terms in an attempt to reflect the actual sex of people: male or female.
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
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.
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.
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.
Fine, you wear a skirt for one reason, I wear it for another. 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.
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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As an observation, it's also worth noting that not only is language being redefined here, but the basic perceptions of what constitutes "male" and "female" behaviours are a moving target also. If one looks closely, women are much more "masculine" than they were in the recent past, and men are getting crowded into a very pernicious and toxic box of behaviours that differentiate them from modern "women".

Gone, for instance, in the modern male repertoire of behaviours are things like empathy, caring, and the ability to nurture. This automatically makes men a failure at being fathers save for being a sperm-donor. It also makes them rotten in relationships. The average guy doesn't dare show those sorts of emotions -- even if he's capable of them -- for fear of ridicule. Is this progress? Does a man have to formally have to declare himself trans-* in order to exhibit perfectly human emotions and characteristics? Is that progress?

Being able to care and feel is not "feminine" (a largely obsolete concept) -- it is human. Once our humanity is stripped away, are we any better, or even different from, animals? Note that certain other species also exhibit behaviours resembling altruism and mourning. Are we to be reduced to less than even that?

Language -- and especially Political Correctness -- be damned. Whither humanity?
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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crfriend wrote:...Gone, for instance, in the modern male repertoire of behaviours are things like empathy, caring, and the ability to nurture. This automatically makes men a failure at being fathers save for being a sperm-donor. It also makes them rotten in relationships. The average guy doesn't dare show those sorts of emotions -- even if he's capable of them -- for fear of ridicule...
If a man chooses against empathy, caring, and nurturing, surely he's a prisoner of his own device.
Courage, conviction, nerve, verve, dash, panache, guts, nuts, balls, gall, élan, stones, whatever. Get some and get skirted.

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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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Caultron wrote:If a man chooses against empathy, caring, and nurturing, surely he's a prisoner of his own device.
Or is it if he cannot think otherwise?
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Re: More Than A Quarter Of California Teens Are Gender Nonco

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crfriend wrote:As an observation, it's also worth noting that not only is language being redefined here, but the basic perceptions of what constitutes "male" and "female" behaviours are a moving target also.
Male behaviour is fertilising women and female behaviour is being fertilised, giving birth to babies and breast-feeding them; everything else is masculine or feminine behaviour and is much more flexible and interchangeable, depending on the individual's gender and the society they live in.
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