Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

Gender has the following definition according to Merriam-Webster:

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2 a : sex
b : the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex

It's funny how these are two distinct things.

I don't think we can understand 2b without the implicit inclusion of behavioral, cultural and psychological expectations, as these shape traits. For example, the experience of being female in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is different from the experience of being female in the UK (for now). Given that contrast it's easy to see how different expectations lead to different traits. However, based on how I understand usage of the term, this doesn't mean that there are two different genders for females; instead, we say these two populations (generally) have two different conceptions of gender. If a conception of differences between sexes isn't acknowledged to be the thing we're talking about, then the thing we're talking about isn't purely subjective.

So instead of going with Definition 2a or with 2b, I'll define it myself: gender is the differences between sexes - specifically the set of ethically justified differences in treatment and/or expectations of individuals based upon their sex. If you acknowledge two sexes and also acknowledge biological differences that effect behavior exist between them, then there are exactly and objectively two genders, both of which are subject to plenty of subjective interpretation (in the same way the concept of "the good" allows many interpretations).

The confusing thing about neofeminists is that, as far as I can tell, it's not that they believe there are more than two genders; it seems to me they advocate either only one gender or none whatsoever, in creed if not in practice. It's seen as heretical to mention biological differences between the sexes, especially if those differences could in any way impact treatment; for instance, any attempt to explain that a gender pay gap exists but isn't horrible is itself viewed as apologetics for horror. The only exception in the neofeminist ethics to this orthodoxy is to imagine what differences in treatment occur throughout society as a whole and attempt to balance the scales with an equal and opposite bias, which naturally leads to exaggerated claims of widespread, pervasive, baseless and evil sexism to justify extravagant bias in favor of women.

Gender is, technically, a social construct; ethical criteria for discrimination based on merit don't grow on trees, they're the product of human thought. But if that's all they are, if they're not rooted in a true understanding of real differences, then such social constructs are little more than arbitrary designations, divorced from meritocratic discrimination, used to separate people into classes for the purposes of power. I guess it shouldn't surprise me then that, in typically Alinskyite fashion, there's over 50 distinct genders according to some people. The essence of neofeminism is to insist differences between sexes don't exist as they beat their opponents over the head with them.

Of course, the core tenent of neofeminism is absurd from the outset. We are mammals, a classification of animals named after mammaries, a biological manifestation of long-evolved differences in gender roles. I'm not saying you need to like or put up with this natural set of circumstances - rebel against it if you want to - but one cannot effectively fight an enemy when one is so deluded about its nature as to deny its very existence. As Bacon said, nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

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1453R wrote:

the typical angry reactionary junk comes from: "do you have a dick? Then you're a guy. Do you have a pussy? Then you're a girl. "

Gender is a lot more than genitalia. Testosterone and estrogen are both potent drugs that effect both mental and physical development in a multitude of ways; hell, the former is ananabolic steroid. An adult brain that has been marinating in testosterone since puberty houses a male mind that will objectively think differently from an otherwise identical brain that marinated in estrogen.

Again, I'm not saying that attempts to change this are futile or ethically degenerate, but one does not simply go against nature. Nor is anything achieved by claiming a transformation with no basis in physical reality.

If transgenderism was a natural thing, you'd see roughly equal representation in confused individuals of male & female sex. But from my observations (debates, protests, articles) there is a huge over-representation of men who think they are (or wish to be) women and not viceversa.

Clearly there is something else at work here, eg. an artificial source (men's average testosterone levels have been dropping over the last decades, for some reason) or this whole clown show is purely a social construct (liberal propaganda confusing people, fanatic libruls transitioning their kids before puberty because that's a fad now, etc...).

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morbo wrote:

If transgenderism was a natural thing, you'd see roughly equal representation in confused individuals of male & female sex. But from my observations (debates, protests, articles) there is a huge over-representation of men who think they are (or wish to be) women and not viceversa.

Clearly there is something else at work here, eg. an artificial source (men's average testosterone levels have been dropping over the last decades, for some reason) or this whole clown show is purely a social construct (liberal propaganda confusing people, fanatic libruls transitioning their kids before puberty because that's a fad now, etc...).

Your homework is to find out why men have nipples.

Obviously not to lactate babies.

Actually, there are circumstances under wich a man might lactate. But no, that's not why.

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1453R wrote:

You're mistaking biological sex for gender identity.

personally, i dont even care about this whole thing. its amsusig at best to me, and i have this hunch that 10 or 20 years from now we will look back at "gender-debates" the same way we now look back on punk and anarchism or hippies and free love.

however...whats among the first things established about an unborn child? its (biological) gender. how do the parents react to that? they choose a name, and most names indicate a gender. they spread the word that they are expecting either a boy or a girl.

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1453R wrote:

"do you have a dick? Then you're a guy. Do you have a pussy? Then you're a girl.

for most people its that simple. again, i personally cant even be bothered with this whole thing, dont know if that makes me tolerant or maybe the most ignorant of them all, but i dont even care. do as you please, be whoever you want to be.
but you are obviously aware of the fact that most people do thing in this narrow manner....and you are going against it.
honestly, and i know this is a terrible thing to say, the key to a happy life is simply to fit in.

what i dont get is how people proclaim their individuality and that everything was subjective - but then crave public acceptance. thats a contradiction in itself.

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1453R wrote:

What does my decision to make of my identity what I desire impinge of your freedoms? What 'FREEDOM OF' am I abrogating by exercising my 'FREEDOM TO' choose my own identity rather than passively accept whatever identity the world feels like handing me? You yourself stated that males and females can exhibit traits from the other side - what is that, if not a spectrum of identity/expression?

the freedom of meeting peoples expectations, simply put.
in order to navigate through everday life we rely on (anonymous) people playing and fulfilling roles in the public sphere.
of course thats superficial, its anti-individual, its terrible, you should of course rebel against it - but it is simply how everyday-life is structured. whats the alternative?

to give a practical example: the whole bathroom-thing. so a biological male who identifies ...self as female attends the female bathroom. freedom impinged, if you ask me.

Sort of funny how people ignore the stability fixed sexes/gender provides to a society in forms of stable laws and rules.

We don't teach outliers of the norm to children for a good reason, it's a waste of time. That's not that people ignore their existence, just that it holds little relevance to their lives since the rules are based on the fixed states and not that dude who identify's as a women or vice versa.

I think it was the dude from lowder with crowder that said it like this

"Do we teach children in school that humans have eleven fingers? And why not?"

This obviously occurs sporadically, but there is absolutely no merit to society in representing such a thing as the norm.

Peace,

-Boem-

Heh. Man, every thread I step into has the whole forum dogpiling me.

I could go on for a page and a half just on Scrotie's declaration that biological realities justify poorer/lesser treatment overall of individuals of the female sex (I know that's not what you meant, Scrotie, but it is in fact what you said and I'd be down for that debate all over), but that's not really the subject at hand here.

From what I've been able to determine from having versions of this debate all over the place, the core of the opposition to more fluid modern depictions or understandings of gender boils down to "stop fuckin' confusing people". FOlks want there to be exactly two genders - male and female. They want any given individual to belong to exactly one of those genders, as determined by the physical configuration of their body. They want this because it's intuitive and is the way the world works on the aggregate whole, and they don't like people trying to upset a perfectly good applecart and getting aggressive about it, the same way people don't particularly care for aggressively religious folks shoving Bibles in their faces or aggressive vegans giving them endless grief over the burger they had for lunch. People don't like 'alternative lifestyles', and they sure as hell don't care for the fact that this is the one 'alternative lifestyle' that's getting highly visible public support from a subsection of the government.

I get that. I hear a lot of "why don't they just admit they're gay, or crossdressers, or sissies, or (insert something else here)? There's nothing wrong with that sort of thing these days. Why do they gotta confuse the issue and try to force people to call them something they ain't?"

Here's the thing, though. A lot of folks who put themselves in this spot are not any of those things. As the only acknowledged nonbinary asshat on the forum (to my knowledge) I can only speak for myself of course, but those are all things that one is or is not outside of their gender. I won't "just admit" I'm any of those things because I'm not those things, or at least not anywhere near my understanding of those things. Doubtless other folks would hang 'sissy' on me all day erry day, but that's them assigning me labels, not me choosing those labels for myself. If I started belligerently demanding that random strangers on the street start "just admit you're gay already!", I'd get the shit kicked out of me and rightly so.

Which also brings me to why the government is stepping in on this issue - nobody violently murders aggressively Christian folks, or aggressively vegan folks, in bloodthirsty mobs in the street. I don't agree with the nits who're making an aggressive issue of this either, but then again I don't agree with angry mobs tearing LGBT folks limb from limb, either.

If you're sneering at me right now thinking "oh geeez, quit exaggerating!", go look up the suicide rates for people trying to undergo gender transition in this country. Look up the murder rates for it. Look up the hate crime statistics against LGBT folks. There's two primary reasons folks with 'less' dysphoria might opt not to bother with transition/reassignment. One of them is that taking a body of one gender, chopping it apart, and reassembling the pieces in a rough facsimile of the other gender whilst giving the individual an expensive lifelong requirement for a melange of drugs they need to take does not, in fact, constitute switching sides. It constitutes subjecting yourself to horror movie shit; my heart goes out to people so crippled by their dysphoria that they see reassignment surgery as their only option.

The other is that outed transgender folks live miserable lives ostracized by their communities more often than not.

That's the thing most folks of my general persuasion are after. Nobody has a 'transgender agenda', that's just idiotic and the people who do are idiots. All folks are really after is permission to be themselves - to be the 'them' their heart and soul tells them they should be - without being at dire risk of murder or being isolated from a community that hates them for bucking the applecart.

NOW. Before you say "It's all right to be kinda girly and still be a guy, you know! You don't need to go around calling yourself some kinda queer freak!"...ask yourself - is it really? Is it truly okay to be male without conforming to the brutish and ugly societal archetypes associated with masculinity? Before you say 'of course it is!', ask yourself how often you've seen someone throw around the word 'cuck' lately. It's a horrible word, a horrible ideal, that encompasses the idea that any man who is not a howling neanderthal who responds to any challenge with violent thuggishness is not truly a man, but is instead a 'beta male' weakling too timid to defend what's his, or what's 'righteous'.

Remember: they invented the derogatory word 'metrosexual' to refer to "normal man who just so happens to not be a screeching Jocklike beer-guzzling fratboy reprobate, but instead shows the slightest signs of emotional maturity, consideration, empathy and respect. I.e. a guy who should really be gay but isn't so we're going to call him Straight Gay instead."

Does this sound like a society that's truly accepting of folks, especially of the male persuasion, outside their assigned roles by any significant amount? Someone mentioned the Funny Fact that M2F leanings are vastly more common (at least in the public eye) than F2M leanings. I'd posit that a big part of that is the fact that being a guy fucking blows ass in this country if you're not a traditional chest-beating football-crazed alcoholic dickhead.

Think on that, the next time you try and convince someone who distances themselves from the male gender that "It's okay to be girly and still be a guy. So stop confusing people."

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1453R wrote:

traditional chest-beating football-crazed alcoholic dickhead.

This is how you see normal men and yet you have the audacity to demand respect and understanding from them.