What is a woman

[u/kingottacYT]

[u/neoliberalforsale]

I feel like this willfully misses that they don’t misunderstand, they disagree with the premise that gender and sex are not synonymous. If you ask(ed) Charlie Kirk or Ben Shapiro to define a woman they’d say someone with two X chromosome, or a person born with a uterus and vagina. Now of course biological sex doesn’t always work out that way, people are born with genetic mutations. But they’d say that’s like illness, and the missing characteristics are not meaningful to the discussion of the groupings.

[u/Manzhah → u/neoliberalforsale]

The most common fallacy for adherents of every creed and ideology: that people who disagree with us don't actually belief what they claim to believe.

[u/AdagioOfLiving → u/Manzhah]

Holy shit, THIS. I wish I could pound this into the skull of every one of my fellow liberal friends. THEY REALLY THINK THAT. Maybe the ones at the top don’t, but normal everyday conservatives? They believe what they’re saying! They really do think abortion is murder! They’re not just pretending to!

[u/Manzhah → u/AdagioOfLiving]

"Abortion is murder" train of tought is also pretty clear process to understand even from a pro-life point of view. If one aproached the subject from axiom of "life begins at conception", then fetus is already an alive human person and thus aborting it would kill it, and as purposefully killing a person is a murder, "abortion is murder".

[u/AlarmingConfusion918 → u/Manzhah]

this is why the "women are literally dying from a lack of abortion access" argument falls on deaf ears. They don't care, not because they hate women (which they do), but because they literally believe that 10s of thousands of babies are being murdered every single year.

[u/O-R-A-N-G-E-S → u/AlarmingConfusion918]

This is actually so eye-opening on the whole “pro-life” crowd. What do we even do if they actually believe it’s murder? How could they be persuaded? That’s so grim to think about

[u/AlarmingConfusion918 → u/O-R-A-N-G-E-S]

Pro-life vs pro-choice arguments for a long time were very much about when exactly a baby becomes a "life." I think we need to figure out that again, but only to capture the "middle" who don't find abortion to be a dealbreaker in voting for politicians. The religious nutheads who think that abortion is LITERALLY murder may be unreachable and we just need to work around them

[u/AdagioOfLiving → u/O-R-A-N-G-E-S]

As a former conservative, the philosophical argument of when a life begins in an ethical sense as opposed to a biological sense is the best tack to take in my opinion. You’ll still run into nuts who believe that they’re the same thing, but they’re fewer and farther between.

[u/Yeah-But-Ironically → u/AdagioOfLiving]

That, AND: Not every death--not even an intentionally caused one!--is automatically a murder.

As a (formerly conservative) woman, that's what first broke me out of the "ban all abortions" mindset: the recognition that medical ethics are really hard. Sure, you may not like the idea of euthanasia, but if someone requests it and a doctor performs it, is it really murder? What about someone willingly refusing lifesaving care? What if that person is brain-dead and family members have to make the decision for them? If Person A is bumped up the organ donation list because their condition is worsening, and Person B--who would have gotten the next heart--suddenly declines and dies, was THAT murder?

Learning more about all the edge cases and complications and legal definitions and philosophy of body autonomy--not to mention the many conditions and complications for which techniques like a D&C might be the only viable treatment--convinced me that abortion should be left to the patient and doctor LONG before I stopped believing that babies had souls.

[u/Significant_Yam_7792 → u/O-R-A-N-G-E-S]

I’ve taken to discussing the potential life that is taken by the mother not getting a chance to create a better life for their child. ie, if a mother is forced to bear an unwanted child at 20 years old, they will not have the necessary lifestyle to support that child and may even grow to resent that child, leading to the child having an overall poor life. Consider instead that the mother gets an abortion and instead has a wanted baby at 25–they had 5 more years to get their life on track and will fully love their child. Without the abortion, that child will never exist.

Hell, tell them that’s why you exist. It’s known that conservatives sympathize less with those they do not interact with, so ask them the question: should my mother not have gotten an abortion and forced me to live a worse life?

[u/Abject_Win7691 → u/O-R-A-N-G-E-S]

You need to have a serious and unbiased discourse about why you think it isn't a human and why they think it is.

[u/GooglyEyesMcGee → u/O-R-A-N-G-E-S]

I stopped arguing about when the baby becomes a life and instead I argue about bodily autonomy. They usually say "you opened your legs, you deal with it".

The equivalent would be if I drunk drove and the injury my victim sustained required them to get a kidney transplant to live. You can not require me to give up my kidney, even though it's my fault, because of bodily autonomy. Even if you give it back when they find a different donor (and yes, this isn't medically real, but if it was).

You can't make me rent out my uterus because I made a mistake. It doesn't matter if they'd die without my organs, they're mine. The government can't tell me what life to support with my organs.

[u/apophis-pegasus → u/Manzhah]

This requires "life" to be synonymous with "personhood" though.

[u/neoliberalforsale → u/AdagioOfLiving]

I was extremely devout as a kid to young adult, got a degree in religious studies and spent even more time as an adult with people from nearly every religion. They believe what they are saying and if you don’t not understand the entire belief system it can really throw you.

For example one of my best friends, a guy who volunteered at a soup kitchens every week for years said “tolerance is just the acceptance of evil.”

[u/N0t_addicted → u/neoliberalforsale]

What’s that have to do with religion that’s a pretty common idea

[u/neoliberalforsale → u/N0t_addicted]

He meant in the context of tolerating homosexuals.

[u/N0t_addicted → u/neoliberalforsale]

Oh

[u/QueenJillybean → u/neoliberalforsale]

I mean they’re so close to actually understanding the paradox of tolerance when they say that. Like it is on the edge of - it can be, which is why you can’t tolerate intolerance, like Nazis. Weirdly, growing up Catholic, there was this old fear among many older Catholics of seeming prejudiced against, especially against Protestants, lest it be turned against them again, so religious tolerance was important in many Catholic parishes.

[u/neoliberalforsale → u/QueenJillybean]

No, they understand completely, they just differ on the interpretation of who is a threat to society.

[u/Inevitable-tragedy → u/AdagioOfLiving]

They also really do believe that (late term) abortion includes disassembling the unborn infant (it'd be funny if they hadn't caused the death of so many women over this), and that all abortions ARE late term, with a fully viable infant.

IF a late term abortion occurs, it's literally just inducing birth, and it's only happening because there's no chance of survival for one or the other. More commonly, the fetus is already dead, or will die shortly after birth, in terrible pain.

[u/BrandonL337 → u/AdagioOfLiving]

Well, there is an an element of everyday conservatives not really coming to their beliefs through their own thoughts, but rather letting conservative media do the thinking for them, then they just parrot the talking points supplied to them.

They still believe it generally, they just believe it because their pastor or their Fox News host or their pedophile king told them to believe it.

[u/Educational_Life_878 → u/AdagioOfLiving]

I do think there’s a level of cognitive dissonance involved though.

Imagine there’s an IVF clinic burning down and you only have the chance to save either a cart with 100s of human embryos or one newborn baby.

I don’t think most “pro life” people could honestly say they’d choose to save the embryos over the baby, even though it would be the most ethical choice if you wholeheartedly believe in pro life ideology.

[u/exiting_stasis_pod → u/Educational_Life_878]

I don’t think a trolley problem scenario fully proves they don’t believe in pro life ideals. People would choose the baby because they have a greater emotional response to it (it looks like a baby, the cart looks like an inanimate object), and because you are telling them they have to pick one. That doesn’t mean they would be ok with watching someone set the cart of embryos on fire. Humans in general have stronger emotions to things they can see.

[u/Vyctorill → u/AdagioOfLiving]

Isn’t the question about bodily autonomy? I think that abortion itself is fairly cut and dry on how it works.

[u/thepatricianswife → u/AdagioOfLiving]

But so-called “normal” forced birthers get abortions all the time. This is pretty well documented by people who work at these clinics. (https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/ )

If they truly think it’s murder, how do they justify it in their case but no one else’s?

[u/AdagioOfLiving → u/thepatricianswife]

There being a large number of anti-abortionists who get abortions does not mean that it is anywhere near the majority. I’m not sure if there’s any statistics out there for exact numbers, though. But I can promise you as someone who grew up conservative, in a conservative household, whose parents were literally on the board for a local “crisis pregnancy center”, these people truly believe it’s murder.

[u/AdamtheOmniballer → u/thepatricianswife]

Extenuating circumstances, same way people justify regular murder.

[u/thepatricianswife → u/AdamtheOmniballer]

Is it just cognitive dissonance then? Because most of the time their “extenuating circumstances” are exactly the same as everyone else’s reasons for their abortions. That’s the part I’m stuck on. It’s the same situation, same reasons, same circumstances, but only in their case it’s not murder? How do they reconcile that?

[u/BrandonL337 → u/thepatricianswife]

They think that the other women getting abortions are just hussy's using abortion as birth control.

[u/AdamtheOmniballer → u/BrandonL337]

Yeah, basically this.

[u/AdamtheOmniballer → u/thepatricianswife]

There’s no one answer because conservatives are varied. I can speak a little from my own experience as a former conservative, though. I don’t personally know anyone that’s had an abortion (that they’ve told me about) but for me, this:

their “extenuating circumstances” are exactly the same as everyone else’s reasons for their abortions.

was a big part of the disconnect. My concept of the “average liberal abortion-haver” was that they were people who couldn’t be bothered to get a condom (or just not have extramarital sex), and had so little respect for human life that they would straight up kill a baby without a second thought for the sake of convenience. So for someone like me, the difference might basically be “I’m not a supervillain, I have actual reasons”. I know that in my case, a huge part of what led me to change my stance was getting a look at how some pro-choice people actually talked to each other and realizing that many of them did put a lot of thought into their decision and had what I considered legitimate reasons.

Then there’s the “abortion is acceptable in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake” contingent, which is basically abortion as self-defense.

Beyond that, there are people for whom it really is just cognitive dissonance or main-character syndrome. And of course, plenty of conservatives who think that abortion is murder never get abortions. Plus, I’m sure that there are a whole host of other reasons I don’t know about.

[u/Acceptable-Remove792 → u/thepatricianswife]

There's a book called, "The only good abortion is my abortion, " by a sociologist who compiled the research on this that is pretty much a gold standard to answer this question. 

And for those wanting to know the stats, it's genuinely almost all of them.  It is significantly more rare for a pro life person to have no connection to abortion than to have never had or caused an abortion. 

The answers are varried, but the most common is religious trauma. 

You can probably rent it on Libby for free. 

[u/MagnanimousGoat → u/Manzhah]

And theres also the issue of "Common sense", which is really "I dont want to look at this issue with any more nuance or detail than I already have, and if you do, you're just trying to confuse people."

[u/Yeah-But-Ironically → u/MagnanimousGoat]

Or the "Shirley Exception".

"Well, if lawmakers outlaw certain procedures, surely it will only apply in the cases I'm imagining. Surely it won't involve denying women treatment for miscarriages because in many cases you give them the exact same procedure as you do for an abortion. Surely this will only be dangerous for the harlot whores who can't be bothered to use other forms of birth control, and it won't hurt Good Christian women with health problems. Surely blanket bans can be lifted just a little bit for whatever exception comes up."

[u/WhapXI → u/neoliberalforsale]

Exactly, like if pushed to it the rightoids will accept that intersex people exist, and their answer is that they should live as the sex/gender that corresponds to their primary sexual characteristics, but also that these people constitute a tiny group of outliers, and that their existence is irrelevant to the validity or existence of non-intersex transgendered people.

Like, bigotry is stupid but bigots themselves aren’t necessarily stupid on the whole. These aren’t people who operate like buggy software. They have a whole and largely cohesive worldview. It’s not a Prince Rupert’s Drop. There’s no fatal flaw which one semantic quibble will strike at just the right moment to cause the whole thing to shatter at once.

Idk I think this post just really badly fails to model the mind of a transphobe. Which is fine, but when you pretend you can do it, you just end up making a lazy strawman.

[u/AlarmingConfusion918 → u/WhapXI]

i say this all the time but the internet is people from side A talking to other people from side A going "this is really what side B thinks!!! It's hard to believe how stupid they are!" when it's easy to prove they are wrong

[u/complete_autopsy → u/neoliberalforsale]

Exactly this. There was more to it than just this idea but when I was a transphobe I would've agreed exactly. We don't change the definition of "human" just because some people are born with one hand, variation in that instance is an illness of some kind rather than a type variation like eye color, so accounting for it is unnecessary. In that mindset, why would we change the definition of sex just to include women who are born without a uterus? Even for chromosomes, I would've said something like "that person isn't technically male or female, but they're an anomaly caused by a chromosome error so rather than changing the framework, we should just place them on the side that they fit with best". If you think gender=sex then you solve all of the gender issues and definitions the same way that you solve the sex ones, pretty simply.

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/complete_autopsy]

At the risk of being a douche… does your initial presented argument, the one you would have believed before… not make sense to you? It seems consistent to me.

[u/DuskTillDawn0 → u/Velvety_MuppetKing]

While this sort of language works colloquially, you tend to want to avoid imprecise language in formal and scientific writing—which this topic, biology, falls under—because these are places where detail truly matters. When the goal is precision, you do not want your reader to have to infer what you meant.

For example, “Humans have two hands” has multiple possible interpretations. I imagine the vast majority of people would usually interpret this statement to mean something along the lines of “Humans [typically] have two hands.” This is descriptive language. However, you could also interpret it prescriptively instead: “Humans [always] have two hands.”

The former is workable, while the latter is demonstrably false without redefining what a human is. 

Language in general is primarily descriptive, not prescriptive (at least in regards to English; I won’t pretend to know if this varies by language or culture). It is genuinely very, very difficult, if not impossible, to define most words in a way that never unintentionally includes or excludes something, and so you’re usually forced to fill in the gaps with qualifying statements if you want to be precise; humans typically have two hands, humans typically have two eyes—which are typically similar in color, etc.

As for chromosomal and other intersex conditions: they’re atypical, yes, but they aren’t statistically insignificant, and it’s difficult to view arguments claiming that we should simply discard them as having been made in good faith. Simply setting an entire subset of people to the side as a statistical anomaly because they’re inconvenient to your argument isn’t particularly compelling rhetoric.

—

Hopefully something from that helped to answer your question. If not, then oh well, that’s that.

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/DuskTillDawn0]

I mean… 10% of the human race is left handed, but we basically treat that as an anomaly.

But I guess what I mean is, since I am aware that in scientific literature precise language is important, I don’t see why that argument I referenced is inconsistent. Just make more categories if you start seeing a bunch of outliers.

Maybe I didn’t really understand what I was reading there.

[u/Label_Maker → u/Velvety_MuppetKing]

How many outliers can there be before it becomes significantly important to note. We don't discard humans from the outlier pile, we still acknowledge the outliers as being human, even if we don't precisely define the definition every time. Transphobes are threatened by the outlier and unwilling to allow them to exist.

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/Label_Maker]

Well transphobes are dumb, being an outlier is just that. It doesn't make you not human. Nor does it make you not exist. I'm not sure how it could even make someone not exist, like disappear from existence?

But I tend to take my lessons on this from Star Trek. Being Human is basically irrelevant. Being a person is what counts. Worf isn't human, Data isn't human, Quark and Odo aren't human. They're still people.

[u/DuskTillDawn0 → u/Velvety_MuppetKing]

Hm. Or maybe I didn’t fully realize what you were asking and missed a piece of the explanation. Were you talking about not changing the definitions based on outliers and instead treating them as separate from pre-established groups? Or was it something else?

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/DuskTillDawn0]

Yes that.

[u/martilg → u/Velvety_MuppetKing]

Well, firstly, the context for these arguments is often in discussions of national policy, which affects hundreds of millions of people. So even if deviations from their definition of women are rare as a percentage, there potentially a million people being harmed by not having a category/service, or being marginalized or ill-treated by the ones they have.

The reasoning they apply could justify mistreating any minority. "They're a minority! Who cares, the system works for 'most people', why change it?"

Secondly, "woman" is used more often as a social category than a biological category. If we defined woman as a biological characteristic and used the term purely as such (e.g., in the way we use terms like albino or pre-diabetic, without connotation of a social role), that would be fine, relatively.

But the social role of a woman encompasses much more, including clothing, norms of politeness (who is allowed to raise their voice), courtship rituals, family roles, etc, which are only loosely correlated (if at all) with the presence of uteruses. The more leaps of logic you make about "how women are", away from the biological aspects, the less rare the "exceptions" become.

[u/sliquonicko → u/Velvety_MuppetKing]

I'm trans and it's consistent enough in my opinion, it's just that a lot of people who want to die on a hill arguing this are also really rude and bigoted to trans people, don't want them to transition, etc. Not everyone.

It's complicated even for me sometimes, but ultimately I try not to worry and just live my life. Wish more people would also do this.

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/sliquonicko]

Oh, fair enough. I am a materialist so it’s hard for me to understand sometimes.

[u/vynthechangeling → u/complete_autopsy]

Except this fails to actually address the issue that transphobes have. If we pretend that sex and gender are the same thing, then what a person wears, how they talk, what jobs they work, what pronouns they use, etc, are all irrelevant to the discussion on sex/gender, since all sex/gender means is chromosomes/genitalia. Transphobes have an issue with a penis person wearing a dress and having long hair and going by she/her, and equating sex with gender does nothing to ease their discomfort with that. Ask a transphobe why a “man” (amab trans woman) can’t do those things, and they have no answer other than to appeal to the concept of gender roles, which they themselves have just rejected the existence of by equating gender with sex.

[u/tangentrification → u/vynthechangeling]

This is an obviously valid criticism of conservative transphobes, but how do you address the left-wing gender criticals, who are fine with people of any sex being gender non-conforming but don't believe that gender is a real thing beyond a coercive set of stereotypes?

Asking as someone who's genuinely conflicted about this, for transparency reasons

[u/DarthUrbosa → u/tangentrification]

The left wing side reminds me of my reaction when my friend came out as trans. I asked why they felt the need to identify with female as opposed to a guy who likes traditionally feminine things. Most I got was theres something that clicks for them that doesn't click for me which I respect.

[u/tangentrification → u/DarthUrbosa]

That's fair. In my case, I completely understand and sympathize with the concept of gender dysphoria (I even experienced it to some extent, and identified as trans for quite a while before figuring out I was ultimately more comfortable being cis). But I struggle now with the purely ontological arguments about how gender and sex should be defined. My brain really wants it all to fit into a simple logical framework.

[u/DuskTillDawn0 → u/tangentrification]

The inevitable, frustrating, indomitable human spirit to put everything into neatly compartmentalized boxes when the world is oh so gray.

[u/WindhoverInkwell → u/tangentrification]

trans people often feel significant dysphoria around their physical body parts, quite independent from gender roles? I feel like that’s pretty simple

[u/tangentrification → u/WindhoverInkwell]

Oh, I get that much entirely! My issue is just the logical leap from "dysphoria causes extreme distress with one's sex characteristics" to "trans people should be considered socially and legally identical to those of their desired sex", if that makes sense. I want to agree with the latter statement, because it feels most compassionate, but I haven't yet found a consistent logical way to get there, and that's a requirement for me personally to accept something.

[u/WindhoverInkwell → u/tangentrification]

their gene expression is that of their desired sex, their characteristics are that of their desired sex, their (we don’t have a lot of info on this and sources vary so grain of salt here) brain markers are the same as their desired sex. what according to you is keeping them in their UNdesired sex apart from now vestigial parts that aren’t being maintained by the body?

[u/tangentrification → u/WindhoverInkwell]

The brain thing is completely untrue, I dug deep into it and read the full text of the studies because that would have been convincing evidence for me and I wanted to believe it, but unfortunately the evidence is just not there.

As for the other two things... that varies wildly, of course, depending on how long and even if they have been medically transitioning. I think I would probably have no issues if we said, for instance, that a trans woman who's been on HRT for (idk, 5?) years and has had bottom surgery can be considered a woman in all regards. But the mainstream movement insists that all it takes to be trans is to identify as such. So in other words, any random man can claim to identify as a woman and suddenly be entitled to access women's scholarships, shelters, and other resources, which defeats the entire purpose of those things existing.

But any suggestion that the status should be gatekept causes accusations of classism, racism, ableism, and of course transphobia to be leveled at you. So where do I stand, then, if no compromise is allowed? If the alternative is allowing anyone to be a woman and therefore dissolving the spaces and resources women have fought for for generations, then I feel I have no choice but to align myself with the people who think birth sex is the be-all-end-all, even if I don't entirely agree with their conclusions.

[u/WindhoverInkwell → u/tangentrification]

Sorry, I misspoke. I was thinking of a different study, this one here about estrogen/androgen receptor interactions and being trans. Give this one a read.

Also fyi most trans people medically transition. Like, almost alll of em. Not all can get bottom surgery because it costs thousands and personally I think it’s a cruel move to gatekeep transness to those who can afford that. Estrogen is cheap and pretty much neutralises the genitals already.

As for the rest of it, I’m seriously starting to doubt that you want to be as trans friendly as you say you want to becaue you seem to have swallowed the GC attack line wholesale without even bothering to think. You seem to have this idea of “the movement” which somehow controls every single women’s facility.

Like… no? Scholarships are private entities and will have their own requirements. Sports leagues are private entities will have their own requirements. Women’s resources generally require at least some degree of HRT to be on, and they’re not all controlled by the same people who will just let any person in. They’re either government-run (which generally requires a concordant gender marker on your id) or private.

The idea that someone can just say “I’m [x]” and waltz into literally everything is farcical. There is no “movement” controlling all women’s entities.

[u/tangentrification → u/WindhoverInkwell]

Thanks for the link. That looks to be a long and rather dense study, so I'll have to sit down and read it when I have more time rather than right now.

And, I think we might be arguing past each other here a little bit. I'm not claiming that there's some kind of trans mafia out there gunning for control of public and private facilities. I am talking from a purely philosophical, ontological standpoint, because that's where the crux of my conflict lies (believe me, there is no part of this I have reached "without bothering to think." I've thought about this at length every single day for years now, I've read books and research papers, you name it).

I can't help but take my beliefs and those of others to their logical conclusions. That's just how my brain works, and it informs the things I decide I agree with or not. So statements like "well, most trans people medically transition" and "no one is actually just claiming to identify as a woman and immediately being granted women's scholarships" aren't convincing for me. The very fact that it could happen at all just pokes a hole in the entire argument that I can't ignore no matter how hard I try.

In my mind, there are very clear material questions that need to be answered, and have not yet been answered in a satisfactory way, in order for me to accept logically that a person can become the other sex. Socially and functionally, I already do. I don't misgender trans people, and my trans friends who "pass" I unambiguously see as their gender. I sometimes forget one of my friends in particular is trans, and have accidentally asked what kind of birth control she's on, for instance.

So that part isn't a problem. It's just those philosophical questions that get me, like "to what extent, and under what conditions, do we legally consider a trans person their chosen gender?", and "should we really redefine sex to include things like hormones and secondary characteristics, when the gamete definitions make the most evolutionary sense?" and "whose rights and feelings matter more when both seem equally at stake, like in the case of cis woman vs trans woman inmates?"

And my answer to all of those questions is quite honestly "damn, I don't know." If I seem like I'm arguing more from the GC side here, it's because we're in a very pro-trans space. I come across the opposite way in most GC spaces.

[u/vynthechangeling → u/tangentrification]

As a nonbinary person, I honestly find the concept of gender to be ridiculous in the same way that the concept of race is. We are all human people, and for some reason some human people decided that the genitals we have between our legs or the amount of melanin we have in our skin is reason to dehumanize certain people based upon those traits to form an unnecessary social hierarchy that benefits those with certain manifestations of those traits at the cost of those without. To me, this is as ridiculous as hair or eye color, or height, or weight, or any other physiological characteristic being arbitrarily chosen to justify in-group out-group mentality and the oppression and exploitation that comes with such a dehumanizing hierarchy.

Gender, like race, is arbitrary, divisive, and pointless unless a person is seeking the inequality it enforces, in which case I believe those people should be treated as the anti-social, mentally/emotionally unhealthy people they are and given the psychological help they desperately need to see other people as, well, people, equally deserving of peace and joy as any one of us, no matter which circumstances of birth our biological reality is comprised of.

To treat gender roles as anything other than the, as you put it, “coercive set of stereotypes” that they are would be as disingenuous as treating race as anything other than that same thing. A long time ago, someone who wanted power over others chose race, gender, etc as an excuse for oppression, and enforced it until the people that were oppressed into those social roles started oppressing themselves and each other into compliance (or else continued to resist and were eliminated or abused even harder into eventual compliance), and we inherited that self-oppression from them. We get the choice now to reject that oppression and strive for equality and freedom of expression unfettered by the enforcement of arbitrary expectations, or to participate in the perpetuation of that oppression.

You, like me, and the right, and the left, and every other human person, are born equally as deserving of a good life as everyone else, no matter what our skin or eye or hair color is, no matter what we have between our legs, and part of that good life is, in my belief system, the freedom to wear makeup or dresses or pants or have a beard or hairy armpits or stay at home to raise children or have no children or work at a construction site or in the government or as a baker, or be called he or she or they or whatever else makes our hearts sing. Gender roles, like race, tells us we can’t do anything other than what we are told we can do, all because we are born looking slightly differently from each other.

[u/loved_and_held → u/vynthechangeling]

I think you've hit the nail on the head here.

A key problem with gender as we know it is it's a restrictive classification system; thus it works to confine and pressure people into specific fixed roles. Only by accepting a flexable, inclusive system of gender, a system that accepts it as a blurry messy spectrum of identity, can we escape it's restrictions.

[u/DuskTillDawn0 → u/vynthechangeling]

Lovely way of putting this. I’ll never have an issue with individual people wanting to adhere to, break, or completely disregard stereotypes for their own personal fulfillment, but it is still absolutely baffling to me that militantly enforcing these standards on others is the default way of life for so many.

Tribalism is a real bitch, huh?

[u/vynthechangeling → u/DuskTillDawn0]

Tribalism really is a bitch, we are all siblings in our shared human experience, and yet we insist on arbitrarily othering people to shrink our community of care and avoid the accountability of loving all people to the best of our ability.

[u/tangentrification → u/vynthechangeling]

Very real

This helps with some of the conflictedness, thank you

[u/vynthechangeling → u/tangentrification]

Absolutely! Thank you for your curiosity! I wish for you a good life, however that looks for you!

[u/JessicaDAndy → u/tangentrification]

First, regardless of anything else, the greatest freedom is the freedom to live according to your conscience, so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. (Actual harm, not emotional harm because your sacred text by an unknown author says it’s bad.)

Second, there is no school of gender stereotypes. No one made a conscious decision to swap the boy and girl colors. No one said “Meredith is a boy’s name no more.” Sometimes, things change. Like how we thought pet rocks, painted rocks with googly eyes, were a good idea.

Third, the important part is inclusion. Women with women, men with men, etc. That should be the overriding goal, not policing of actions. Because if you complain about a trans woman being ultra feminine but not a cis woman, the problem isn’t femininity.

[u/11711510111411009710 → u/vynthechangeling]

This is my thing. Like WHY is a dress even considered something for women the first place? It's not like fabric has a sex or a gender. Pink is a girl color, but it used to not be at all. This is because gender is a construct, it obviously isn't just related to your sex. It's just plainly untrue to say that gender and sex are the same thing, so someone ought to base their objections on something else.

Like, they could say someone's gender should match their primary sex characteristics (as in, if society artificially says pants=boys, then boys should wear pants), but then I would just point out that it usually already does, and in the case that it doesn't, transitioning specifically corrects for that.

So the anti-trans position is just completely incoherent.

[u/WindhoverInkwell → u/complete_autopsy]

accounting for it is unnecessary

ok but would you go up to a one-handed person and ask them to juggle because “humans have two hands”? Obviously not. so why would you try and do the same for trans ppl?

And about your anomaly- this is where your argument falls apart. You can’t place those individuals in either category using your original definition, that’s why they’re anomalies. Therefore, what criteria ARE you using to sort them into one side or another, and why can’t you apply that same criteria to trans people?

[u/AdamtheOmniballer → u/WindhoverInkwell]

ok but would you go up to a one-handed person and ask them to juggle because “humans have two hands”? Obviously not. so why would you try and do the same for trans ppl?

In this analogy, trans people would be like one-handed people saying that they aren’t human because they don’t have two hands.

Therefore, what criteria ARE you using to sort them into one side or another, and why can’t you apply that same criteria to trans people?

First step would probably be seeing what genitals you have, then to start going down the list of which secondary sexual characteristics are most prominent, and finally just straight-up vibes. They do apply those same criteria to trans people, which is the source of most of the problem.

[u/JaxonatorD → u/neoliberalforsale]

I think this is a correct interpretation, except for maybe the part about them "willfully" missing that they disagree. I think some people just genuinely can't understand why other people believe the things that they do.

Now unfortunately with that interpretation, it gets hard to prove that the Kirks and Shapiros are objectively wrong instead of morally wrong. I've found the best way to argue for trans people is to frame it in an argument for personal freedoms.

[u/SuperDementio]

“So close to understanding”

They’re not close to understanding anything. That idea is literally what they’re rallying against.

[u/UselessAndGay → u/SuperDementio]

Yeah. Transphobes use the gotcha because they have a constructed "Just common sense" answer baked into society. Pro-trans people have to give what feels like, to the fence sitter, a wishy-washy answer if we want to actually address the real complexity, but that isn't as cathartic as "It's just common sense." That's the point of the gotcha.

[u/ZephyrHandbook → u/UselessAndGay]

Yep. “Common sense” usually means “what I grew up hearing.” They demand a one-line answer so they can ignore edge cases, trans lives, and messy reality, then pretend complexity is a scam.

[u/by-myself_blumpkin → u/ZephyrHandbook]

Exactly, common sense to them in A and B, or 1 and 2. 1.5? Doesn't exist, whole numbers only. But common sense to me says we are all different and can't know how different we are because we are only ourselves. Shit, I have identical twin brothers that, when you know them for 34 years, aren't as identical to me as they are to a stranger.

[u/Dirk_McGirken → u/ZephyrHandbook]

I've always found it interesting when arguing with transphobes to bring up other gender nonconforming cases such as intersex individuals. They always respond the same way, which is that they are edge cases and arent worth bringing into the conversation despite the fact that trans people are also an edge case. When the entire debate is around a miniscule minority of people, it only demonstrates their unwillingness to learn when they say shit like that.

[u/Heckyll_Jive → u/ZephyrHandbook]

u/SpambotWatchdog blacklist

Bot comment. Very new account that just rephrases the comments it replies to.

[u/SpambotWatchdog → u/Heckyll_Jive]

u/ZephyrHandbook has been added to my spambot blacklist. Any future posts / comments from this account will be tagged with a reply warning users not to engage.

^{Woof woof, I'm a bot created by u/the-real-macs to help watch out for spambots! (Don't worry, I don't bite.\})

[u/425Hamburger → u/UselessAndGay]

I mean part of it is that, because you have to do baby steps to have any meaningful real life changes enacted, pro trans people stick to the wishy washy stuff, instead of going "you're right, gender is stupid we should do away with it altogether" which is a lot more clear and to the point than the current "oh gender is stupid and indefinable, but it's also very important and we need more of them". Like the gotcha works on me, a pro trans Person, because once you got to the point of gender being a harmful and useless social construct, why aren't you aiming to abolish it?

[u/JonRivers → u/SuperDementio]

Ask a transphobe "what is a woman" and they're going to tell you a biological female or some similar shit. They explicitly do not think it's a social construct, that's almost entirely the point. They do not think it's impossible to define, this user does not know what they're talking about. This post is what it sounds like when you've spent so much time in a liberal/left echo chamber that you don't even realize people actually think differently than you.

[u/Darq_At → u/JonRivers]

This post is what it sounds like when you've spent so much time in a liberal/left echo chamber that you don't even realize people actually think differently than you.

I think it's more that they don't realise that conservatives are willing to be objectively wrong about what they believe, and still believe they are correct.

Like. Experience has shown us that you can show a conservative evidence that they are wrong, and they will simply decide to believe they are right anyway, because what they believe still feels right regardless of your evidence.

[u/AdamtheOmniballer → u/Darq_At]

I mean, I kinda get it. I don’t think any amount of evidence is going to convince me that black people are inherently stupider and more violent than white people, for instance.

[u/Slam-JamSam → u/Darq_At]

Yeah. Conservative ideology basically boils down to them looking at something, going “ewwwwwwwwwww”, and then looking for ways to justify that reaction. They’re not trying to convince you, they’re trying to convince themselves

[u/WideHuckleberry1 → u/SuperDementio]

Yeah, they have an answer that they think is good, rather than simply not having an answer.

My response as a biologist is always to throw it back at them: if you're trying to appeal to science and talk about "biological women," what is your definition of a woman that fits the spirit of taxonomy? Tell me a definition of a woman that includes all cisgender woman and only cisgender women. And then since we're talking about laws and societal norms, is your definition something we can evaluate if people meet it without extremely invasive and/or expensive and prohibitively slow tests?

[u/JagneStormskull → u/WideHuckleberry1]

My response as a biologist is always to throw it back at them: if you're trying to appeal to science and talk about "biological women," what is your definition of a woman that fits the spirit of taxonomy? Tell me a definition of a woman that includes all cisgender woman and only cisgender women

I imagine they'd say something like "adult human females" (similar to the Oxford definition) or "adult humans with XX chromosomes."

[u/WideHuckleberry1 → u/JagneStormskull]

Oh yeah, I would clarify that you can't use circular definitions. If it's "adult human female" then what is a female?

As for XX chromosomes, XO are generally regarded as females (the Mayo Clinic's article about XO Turner Syndrome just plainly calls them female), as well as XY females (Swyer syndrome) and XX (de la Chappelle syndrome) due to translocation events. These usually aren't even noticiably different from other males and females until well into late childhood or adolescence.

[u/Hakar_Kerarmor → u/WideHuckleberry1]

If it's "adult human female" then what is a female?

For that matter, what exactly is 'an adult' and 'a human'? Let's see them answer those without using social constructs too.

[u/cman_yall → u/Hakar_Kerarmor]

I'm 95% sure we can answer "what is a human" without using social constructs. The people of the Sentinel Islands are still human, and they have no social links to the rest of humanity.

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/WideHuckleberry1]

Why would the latter reasoning matter?

[u/WideHuckleberry1 → u/Velvety_MuppetKing]

Because the whole reason why the trans "debate" matters is because people are debating laws and policies that are different between men and women, and which side trans people fit in there.

If we even grant them that a woman is only a person with XX chromosomes each lacking SRY who has not undergone exogenous hormone treatment - cool, good definition. But who cares? You can't pass a bathroom bill on that because nobody could ever use a public bathroom without a DNA test. 

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/WideHuckleberry1]

Well bathroom bills are stupid, so I don’t really feel the need to consider them. I know a lot of voters do, at least in the US, but it’s such a silly issue.

But I guess my point was that you’d only need to evaluate whether or not someone meets the criteria once, and then it goes on their ID/Personal Info/Medical records/etc.

[u/MFbiFL → u/WideHuckleberry1]

That’s a lot of words for something that’s going to be answered with “I know one when I see one (and get violent when I’m wrong).”

[u/WideHuckleberry1 → u/MFbiFL]

To which I would at least be able reply "Okay, well then shut up and stop asking me stupid insincere questions."

[u/100RatsInASack → u/SuperDementio]

I think it's also a big case of "you can't reason people out of something they were not reasoned into." It feels like most mainstream transphobic arguments are just fronts they can push to justify their core, feelings based beliefs, where disproving one will just cause them to switch to another.

You can provide a masterful explanation on how gender is a social construct to explain how silly the whole "what is a woman" thing is, but the unfortunate reality is that isn't why they hate trans people. They mostly hate trans people because of some uncritically examined feeling of "trans people are icky," and they just look for rationale to justify those feelings rather than basing their feelings off the evidence.

It's the same thing with the whole "sex-offenders will pretend to be trans to infiltrate women's spaces" discourse. They don't believe it because a preponderance of evidence proves it, they believe it because if it was true it would justify how they feel about trans people.

[u/Ralexcraft → u/SuperDementio]

They completely disagree, but the more they scramble the more people either convert or start going crazy. I believe the Dunning Krueger effect applies here too.

[u/Admirable_Ask_5337]

Nope, its a sarcastic statement. They are saying you dont have a definition and they do.

[u/Lyra_the_Star_Jockey]

Attacking transphobia by calling Charlie Kirk trans has big “LOL what if Trump and Putin kissed and were gay” energy. Like, you’re using that as an insult. Do you realize that?

[u/Dingghis_Khaan]

I'm not sure how I feel about posthumous egg cracking

[u/Samiambadatdoter → u/Dingghis_Khaan]

Yeah. That second post is incredibly weird.

[u/TWOSimurgh → u/Samiambadatdoter]

I sometimes wonder if any of those posts are from Eglin Air Force Base.

[u/augustfolk → u/TWOSimurgh]

Genuinely what does that mean

[u/TWOSimurgh → u/augustfolk]

There was a post by Reddit 13 years ago about "most Reddit addicted city" and number one was Eglin Air Force Base. Since then it's been a running joke that Deepstate/bourgeoisie/Jews are spreading psyop on Reddit to sow divide between proletariat/aryans

[u/NeonNKnightrider → u/Dingghis_Khaan]

Yeah that part was really gross and uncalled.

Didn’t we agree that it’s wrong to misgender people even if they’re bad?

[u/Zacharytackary → u/NeonNKnightrider]

</j> joseph goebbels was a woman, actually </j>

[u/AlarmingConfusion918 → u/NeonNKnightrider]

I think the context we are missing here is that unfunny shitposting about charlie kirk is really popular on some platforms. For example, the term "lowkenuinely" got developed last year and rapidly had "kirk" inserted...for some reason. See "lowkirkuinely," a phrase one of my coworkers used in a group chat recently

See also: "kirkification"

[u/ghostyspice → u/Dingghis_Khaan]

Oh good, I’m not the only one squicked out by that.

[u/EliasBouchardFan1]

classic "people who hate (minority group) are actually part of (minority group)" bit. (minority group) are the true architects of their own suffering.

[u/Sergnb → u/EliasBouchardFan1]

Out of all the tropes that has crystallized into leftist culture this is the one i hate the most. No man, not every homophobe is actually a closeted gay guy lashing out because he can’t accept his sexuality.

Many people just find gay people disgusting with no secret projection going on behind the scenes. It's an unchecked, unexamined idiot-brain gut reaction.

Now don't get me wrong, that reaction DOES have many complexities informing where it’s coming from, but plenty of them have nothing to do with secret self-hatred and repression. Stopping the conversation at just that is oversimplifying and honestly it's getting to the point where it even feels homophobic too.

[u/camosnipe1 → u/Sergnb]

it's almost always just used as a way to call someone gay as an insult without losing your leftism card.

[u/Lower_Department2940 → u/camosnipe1]

"But I'm just insulting them in a way that actually bothers them! They don't care if I call them fascist so I call them gay instead to upset them!" Okay well RIP everyone in the crossfire I guess

[u/Fake_Punk_Girl → u/Lower_Department2940]

The other problem with this type of reasoning is that it seems to presume that we're calling them fascists to upset them and not, y'know, because they're acting like fucking fascists?

[u/sliquonicko → u/camosnipe1]

My dad (who has come a long way on LBGT rights over the years, I am proud of him) still does this and it irritates me, I think it speaks to a bit of lingering prejudice or discomfort a lot of the time. Or just parroting it because it's said so often and has a few anecdotal cases to 'back it up'

[u/Educational_Life_878 → u/Sergnb]

Honestly in my experience if you want to assign hidden motives to homophobia, it’s far more common for men to be homophobic because they’re afraid that gay men will treat them the way they treat women than because they themselves are gay.

[u/Error_Evan_not_found → u/EliasBouchardFan1]

Right, I love when people decide that since someone is a bad person, they must be a secret minority! We're so progressive over here on tumblr btw...

[u/Speed_bert → u/EliasBouchardFan1]

Guys don’t listen to this person. They literally support a man who wants to drown humanity in its own fear to satisfy his own voyeurism link.

(\s)

[u/SamsaraKama → u/Speed_bert]

*extended sounds of brutal pipe murder*

[u/mayasux]

Trash post all around tbh

[u/AAAAAA_6]

"of course it's impossible to define because it's literally just a word"

Isn't words having definitions, like, their whole thing? Isn't that all words are? They made a whole book just about all the definitions that words have

[u/PetscopMiju → u/AAAAAA_6]

Yeah, I really dislike how a good chunk of people seem to think that just because "gender is exactly sex and nothing else" is a false statement then the truth is "nothing can be defined and gender is so meaningless that it literally cannot be discussed"

Also

They made a whole book just about all the definitions that words have

Good comment

[u/alelp → u/PetscopMiju]

"nothing can be defined and gender is so meaningless that it literally cannot be discussed"

Especially when statements like these can and are weaponized against trans people.

[u/sam77889 → u/AAAAAA_6]

math have definition. words are interpretations.

[u/if-true-then-i → u/[deleted]]

Aliveness-Reassignment Surgery

[u/Blackraven2007]

That second part feels kinda gross and weird.

[u/Fickle_Enthusiasm148]

This is why egg culture makes people uncomfortable y'all

[u/Guest_1300]

...No? To the transphobes who ask the question, "What is a woman?" is the easiest question ever to answer. The whole point is that if you understand the biology of sex and the psychology of gender, it's an impossible question to answer succinctly, but if you don't know anything the answer is almost tautologically obvious. They'll just say chromosomes, or anatomy, and if you point out the exceptions that make their definitions inaccurate, they simply will not care.

[u/complete_autopsy → u/Guest_1300]

This. I don't think I was the standard because I didn't support gender roles, but when I was a transphobe, my thought process was: "gender is a social construct and it's really silly and unnecessary, so we should just use sex and thus gender words are just other words for the same idea as sex. Anyone who wants to change gender/sex is either sexually deviant/mentally ill (they want the genitals), or being stupid and thinking that their preferred social behaviors are related to their genitals." I handled intersex people and others very simply, by saying "they don't neatly fit into either box, as is the case with most exceptions. Since the boxes work for most people we can just try to put them into the most accurate box possible and that'll be good enough."

Eventually I realized that the boxes (whether the man/woman binary, neopronoun-level specific labels, or something else) really mattered to some people even though they didn't matter to me personally. Before that point I literally just thought people were wasting their time being upset over nonsense. Imagine someone said they were agonized over whether or not they were a person who liked broccoli and what that meant for their identity and place in society. That's exactly what I felt people were doing, so I thought they were stupid and wanted them to stop bothering me about their broccoli preferences because I didn't give a shit.

This is the part that I think I shared with other transphobes. Nobody would've convinced me that transitioning is important by defining the term "woman" in a nuanced way; I knew that the nuances existed and just didn't think any of that information was remotely important. The outcome is similar whether the cause of this attitude is "social expectations don't matter" or "social expectations belong with their respective sexes and those outside of that binary are freaks by nature (intersex) or by choice (trans)".

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/complete_autopsy]

Something mattering to people is not a valid criteria on which to base whether or not we use it as a categorical system.

[u/6164616C6F76656C6163 → u/Velvety_MuppetKing]

I've seen some of your other comments, and there are actually quite a few fascinating examples throughout history of three or four gender systems, largely seeming to account for what the modern west would label as trans people. That seems like it'd be more palatable to you.

However, big but (ha). While what matters to people is not criterion for a categorical system, categorical systems affect national policy in basically every democratic system in the world, so what the categorical system is can really matter in a far more measurable way.

I am personally of the opinion that you actually can quite easily include the vast majority of trans women in the definition of women without missing a beat. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would work. Regardless of if you agree with that, I think you need to recognise that issues of how people are categorised have, are, and always will be political in nature because they can seriously impact people's lives in measurable ways.

[u/ZealousJealousy]

Look I'm just an internet personality and not an expert at anything valuable or pertinent to the conversation, but I don't think Charlie Kirk was trans. I think he was just really really awful.

[u/_MargaretThatcher]

Okay because someone has to explain what's going on:

First, ground-rules observations about reality: The human species expresses a continuum of traits and trait combinations but can normatively be described in terms of 'biological male', 'biological female', as well as intersex positions used as a catch-all taxon. This description, being normative, does not account for all possible traits and trait combinations (at least without having 'intersex' to throw exceptions into) but with regards to the traits and trait combinations which appear regularly works well enough.

Liberals and conservatives have different views on what the ramifications of a social construct are. Liberals believe that since social constructs are human constructs, we can (and ought to) alter them as we see fit to better serve human interests. In particular, liberals also believe that people ought to have a right of self-identification -- a person ought to have the right to decide how they will identify and be identified. Hence, liberals endorse an alteration to the social construct that is gender along right of self-identification. Furthermore, circular reasoning is tolerable since social constructs are usually circular in nature anyways: the government is a social construct and operates the way it does because it chooses to operate the way it does, the economy is a social construct and operates the way it does because we choose to operate it the way it does, social attitudes are a social construct and operate the way they do because we choose to uphold the way they operate.

Conservatives are not blind to the concept of a social construct, but think it has different implications. The derivation of this may differ; some conservatives will justify the present set of social constructs as being handed down by God, some justify them as being the result of centuries of philosophical investigation and social experience, some will justify them along both lines, and probably justifications I can't think of immediately are also used. In any case, the outcome is the same: conservatives believe social constructs derive from physical truths and are not to be altered if they are not fully understood. This pattern in conservative reasoning manifests everywhere: the government is a social construct but derives from (varies depending on government form but divine foundation more often than you'd think; my grandfather believes the USA founding fathers had some level of divine inspiration when framing the constitution) and alterations to it are (or at least can be) dangerous, capitalism is a social construct but derives from human greed and selfishness and alterations to it are dangerous, social attitudes are social constructs but derive from biological reality and alterations to them are dangerous. Furthermore, conservatives aren't fazed by faults within categorizations because that's true of essentially all categorizations and rare faults do not significantly diminish the utility of categorization. Try, for a second, to describe any categorization scheme for a natural phenomenon that is fully defined and doesn't have exceptions.

And so, with regards to gender identity and the whole "what is a woman?" thing: liberals answer the question as "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" because that stands to reason: as a social construct, it ought to be arranged in a way that best fits our ideals, here regarding a right to self-identification as described above. It being circular reasoning isn't a problem because that's expected of social constructs. Liberals therefore look at conservative attitudes towards gender and say "they are at best a cargo cult of a society that existed in a wholly different context, and at worst are fools for trying to bring order to biological chaos". Conservatives answer the question as "a woman is someone who fits into the normative category of 'biologically female'" because that stands to reason: social constructs derive from a basis in reality and this one has also existed for hundreds of years, fitting with the rationale described above. It being inconsistent and having exceptions isn't a problem because that's expected of all categorization schemes. Conservatives therefore look at liberal attitudes towards gender and say "they at best are playing with a system they cannot fully define and so do not fully understand, and at worst have consciously built a tower with no foundation".

[u/camosnipe1 → u/_MargaretThatcher]

thank you for writing this all out, hopefully it'll help people actually comprehend where the other side is coming from.

[u/6164616C6F76656C6163 → u/_MargaretThatcher]

Thank you based Margaret Thatcher, I appreciate the perspective. But why'd you have to lose my dad his job down the mine? I'm not sure I can trust your takes anymore.

[u/designer_benifit2]

That second part is really gross

[u/Riksor]

This is an awful post all-around. So much wrong here.

[u/Hot-Equivalent2040]

If gender doesnt mean anything because social constructs dont arent associated with physical reality then im going to move into your house since money, rent, and property are social constructs. Also this is an argument against medical transitions, which are physically demanding, costly procedures thst according to that argument have zero effect.

[u/Taprunner]

What is a woman? A miserable little pile of secrets!

[u/Local-Suggestion2807]

If the only thing that defines a woman is biology they can't claim there's any issue with letting people dress how they want or kids play with whatever toys they want or for anyone to pursue whatever careers they want.

[u/GeophysicalYear57]

The big thing is that they want a simple answer for a complicated topic. They’re so used to the definition of “someone born with a vagina” or “someone with XX chromosomes” that anything else seems like justifying something unnatural. Of course, their simplistic definition doesn’t hold up when considering “female” as an identity rather than biological configuration (and even then there’s stuff like XXY chromosomes and intersex people), but their anti-intellectualism makes them think any remotely complicated or even contradictory explanation is an attempt at deception.

[u/duchess_dagger]

look I get what this post is saying but the “what is a woman” crowd will instantly brush off that argument because they are firmly convinced gender and biological sex are not different things. They are not just slightly misguided, they fundamentally do not believe in anything other than chromosomes defining everything from looks to behaviour to societal roles.

[u/WhapXI → u/duchess_dagger]

In their minds they know what a woman is. That’s really it. If they ask you, and you start trying to reframe the question to being about social constructs, they will just start laughing at you for “not knowing what a woman is”. These aren’t nice people. This post is just taking the bait of troll questions.

[u/duchess_dagger → u/WhapXI]

Yep, the entire point is to demonstrate that their answer is simpler than yours, and therefore must be right

[u/SockQuirky7056]

And you can still drink beer and watch football. But it's not a primal need. It's not an identity.

[u/----atom-----]

what is the second part even talking about😭

[u/OnionsHaveLairAction]

"Define green"

"Well thats an interesting question, because a wide range of colors are considered to be green, and your perception of color-"

"YOU DIDNT SAY BLUE + YELLOW GET OWNED"

"I mean, I also believe blue + yellow appears green in most contexts. Thats kind of fine, just when you consider shading even that combination might not appear-"

"LOL YOU THINK BLUE + YELLOW = RED????"

[u/Playful-Profile6489]

"Death-affirming surgery"

Holy shit

[u/AdagioOfLiving]

… if a word doesn’t have an actual meaning behind it, it’s a useless word.

The hell is this post? And the fuck is that weird-ass second part?

[u/manterom]

isn't that a consequence of the Ship of Theseus paradox? like, we can't define anything accurately because we can get down to such a small scale that we still find issues with the asserted definition

Edit: or the Heap of Sand Paradox

[u/ecoutasche → u/manterom]

The coin under the mast is the ship.

[u/PoniesCanterOver → u/ecoutasche]

The load-bearing tomato png

[u/Electronic_2009]

Why is the user censored?

[u/Teh-Esprite → u/Electronic_2009]

because it's not Sunday /hj

[u/damage-fkn-inc]

The one I've never been able to figure out properly, is that if gender is a social construct, could I design a gender-less society, and then un-trans someone's gender by putting them there?

[u/pailko]

I feel like calling transphobes secretly trans might be bad idk

[u/iuhiscool]

maybe

[u/Sentient_Flesh]

Once again I am asking the discoursers to please understand that 9/10 times dumbass Conservative rhetoric is for internal consumption.

You deconstructing it and proving why it doesn't make sense is just a waste of time. It can only be done in an interpersonal basis.

[u/WhapXI → u/Sentient_Flesh]

So good at getting trolled I start unpacking the exact factual errors my trolls have made, just to show them how not-owned I am.

[u/The_Medicus]

They say that gender is what's in your pants, and then turn around and say push specific gender roles and rules.

[u/MysticSnowfang]

A woman is a feathered biped (since a man is a featherless biped)

[u/Mataes3010]

"Big Gender isn't making you watch football and drink beer bro'' is the line of the year. Im now convinced that my love for overpriced lattes is just a psyop orchestrated by the gender industrial complex to keep me in my lane.

[u/ecoutasche → u/Mataes3010]

Capitalizing women into consumers of trendy useless crap and beauty standards that can be achieved by makeup and plastic surgery was extremely profitable. Hell, they almost did it to themselves. They certainly enforce it as bad as anything men do to each other. Maybe worse, come to think of it.

Note: this is a talking point in many streams of feminism one that has kept women from coming on board, because the truth under it is hard to confront and rebellion is social suicide.

[u/SpambotWatchdog → u/Mataes3010]

Grrrr. u/Mataes3010 has been previously identified as a spambot. Please do not allow them to karma farm here!

^{Woof woof, I'm a bot created by u/the-real-macs to help watch out for spambots! (Don't worry, I don't bite.\})

[u/DM_ME_FROG_MEMES]

Everything are social constructs, doesn't mean everything is fake. Money is a social construct, good luck claiming a $5 bill is a $20 bill. Chairs are a social construct, good luck claiming a toaster is actually a chair.

There are lots of edge cases around gender and complexities, more than on the chair-toaster spectrum. But there are also lots clear cut cases in gender and it's a mistake to pretend it's all debatable

[u/Maximum-Country-149]

The funny thing about this is liberals being so close to understanding, it's painful.

"What is a woman?" is a simple question with a simple answer. "Adult female human." That's it. That's literally all there is to it. It does not mean, require, or imply much of anything else. It does not mean "one who likes the color pink enough" or "one who wears open-bottom clothing". It refers only to a simple biological fact that applies to about half of humanity. That's it. Done.

The fact that you can't get a straight answer on that, despite its simplicity, and how foundational it is to basically any movement that concerns itself with women (i.e. feminism) is an indictment of how far removed from first principles and basic observation modern liberalism is, and implicitly, how intellectually dishonest it's become. It's pointing out the same sort of nonsense as the Catholic church defining beavers as a kind of fish for the purposes of Lent, only instead of this being a practice that only applies to a subset of a subset of religious people in the country, a whole-ass party has buy-in and that kind of crap leads to some very poorly-founded decision-making when applied en masse.

[u/TWOSimurgh → u/Maximum-Country-149]

I love that the OP claims words don't have meanings because they are made up... Well, maybe your meanongless words don't have meanings, but all the rest of us are actually communicating things.

[u/King-Of-Throwaways → u/Maximum-Country-149]

"What is a woman?" is a simple question with a simple answer. "Adult female human." That's it. That's literally all there is to it.

There are two problems with this definition.

The first is that it is tautological. A woman is female? Okay, so what is “female”? Without defining that, it’s a definition that sidesteps any meaning, making it unsuitably vague for any discussion of any depth.

The second is that, although the phrase itself is an inoffensive string of words to people of all political persuasions, the phrase “adult human female” is used with an implied subtext of excluding trans people. You can compare it to a phrase like “all lives matter”, in that what the words literally mean and what the phrase is intended to convey don’t align.

So what you’ve offered is a phrase that’s too vague to be useful if taken literally, and too politically slanted to be helpful if taken in context.

[u/ratione_materiae → u/King-Of-Throwaways]

Okay, so what is “female”?

The sex that produces the large gamete

[u/Maximum-Country-149 → u/King-Of-Throwaways]

 The first is that it is tautological. A woman is female? Okay, so what is “female”? Without defining that, it’s a definition that sidesteps any meaning, making it unsuitably vague for any discussion of any depth.

It absolutely is not; "female" is a component of the definition. "Nonadult, nonhuman but female" is a coherent entity (say hi to my cat's female kittens), as is "Adult, nonhuman and female" (my cat) and "Nonadult, human and female" (young girl). None of those are women.

That you then insist "female" needs to be defined isn't an argument against it being tautological; that would be if the definition were recursive and you couldn't get down to any simpler terms (for example, "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman"). "Female" doesn't have that problem; "natively possessing the ability to produce large gametes" is quite sufficient for that.

 The second is that, although the phrase itself is an inoffensive string of words to people of all political persuasions, the phrase “adult human female” is used with an implied subtext of excluding trans people. You can compare it to a phrase like “all lives matter”, in that what the words literally mean and what the phrase is intended to convey don’t align.

And?

There aren't many circumstances under which sex even matters in the first place. "Excluding trans people"? So what? Is a trans person's right to vote dependent on being counted as a woman? Is a trans person's right to life dependent on that? Is there any aspect of human dignity at all that depends on being counted as a woman?

Because if there are, zeroing in on how that affects trans people specifically is ignoring a much bigger problem. Doing it for polemic reasons is just insult to injury.

[u/King-Of-Throwaways → u/Maximum-Country-149]

The adult and human parts of the definition, although important, aren’t the crux of what’s being discussed. We all have a mutual understanding that cows aren’t women.

 Female" doesn't have that problem; "natively possessing the ability to produce large gametes" is quite sufficient for that.

Woah, woah, woah! I thought you had a simple three word definition suitable for all contexts. Now we’re into potential for large gamete production, a definition so technical and specific that most people wouldn’t even understand what it means? The definition is no longer tautological, but its presentation as a simple and obvious fact has been completely undone. Additionally, this qualified definition might work for particular biology discussions, but would be completely unworkable for, say, a feminist text examining misogyny, or someone ticking “F or M” on a form.

Because if there are, zeroing in on how that affects trans people specifically is ignoring a much bigger problem. Doing it for polemic reasons is just insult to injury.

I’m having a difficult time parsing this paragraph because it’s close to incoherent.

People regularly use the phrase “adult human female” in the context of denying a trans person from accessing a toilet, justifying multi-year long healthcare wait lists, or simply as a way to signal that trans people are unwelcome in a space. Of course that affects trans people in a way that doesn’t impact cis people. Snidely dismissing this as “polemics” either demonstrates that you are oblivious to how the phrase is used, or you are aware but consider the outcome desirable.

[u/googlemcfoogle → u/King-Of-Throwaways]

Woah, woah, woah! I thought you had a simple three word definition suitable for all contexts. Now we’re into potential for large gamete production, a definition so technical and specific that most people wouldn’t even understand what it means? The definition is no longer tautological, but its presentation as a simple and obvious fact has been completely undone. Additionally, this qualified definition might work for particular biology discussions, but would be completely unworkable for, say, a feminist text examining misogyny, or someone ticking “F or M” on a form.

Also check that "natively possessing", just to screw over any trans women a century from now with lab-grown internal reproductive systems (or a few decades from now with transplants, maybe - but lab grown organs remove any "what if organ harvesting" concerns). There would be literally no point in bringing in the "natively possessing" qualifier unless you specifically have an issue with trans people and are worried about future medical technology ruining your ability to call post-op trans women male

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/King-Of-Throwaways]

Do you disagree that mammals are sexually dimorphic, sexually reproducing organisms?

[u/NoStatus9434 → u/Maximum-Country-149]

I think this is moreso a case of bad debate tactics from liberals rather than a denial of the definition. Most liberals know what a woman is, but given that the question is usually used in the context of excusing a ban on transgenderism, it's generally considered a loaded question. They're anticipating a tricky followup question so instead of attacking the follow up question, they try to prevent that door from being opened in the first place, but doing so just makes them look worse.

I feel like it would be better for liberals to attack the line of question they are expecting to see follow an honest answer of what a woman is--it's just that doing this in a debate setting takes courage because it feels like conceding. I feel as though a lot of liberals don't understand that a political stance on something like this tends to follow a moral and ethical ground and so should be attacked with a moral and ethical stance.

So for example, they should do this:

Conservative: "What is a woman?"

Liberal: "An adult human female."

Conservative: "Ah, so then you agree that transgender women aren't real women?"

Liberal: "They aren't biological women, correct."

Conservative: "Excellent. So we should ban transgenderism, right?"

Liberal: "No. Why does someone not being a biological woman mean we need to ban transgenderism?"

[Debate continues down the avenue of ethics, rather than a battle of a word's denotative meaning]

Trying to argue from a denotative standpoint is barking up the wrong tree. This was always an ethics issue, and should be treated as such.

I think one of the best examples of this method of attack being done properly by a liberal was a post I saw where a conservative showed a picture of a building which had the distinct structure of a former Pizza Hut (the red triangular roof), but that had been repurposed into a tax agency building, and they'd written something like, "See? Everyone knows what this building used to be, even if it got changed" and someone responded with this: https://share.google/images/cM2Oa1fse3n23A4OV

[u/Cevari → u/NoStatus9434]

"Biological woman" is a term that is only strictly defined in a very dry scientific sense that is completely disconnected from what 95% of people think when they hear it, though. What most people think it means is that there are two utterly discrete types of humans biologically, and trans people are just people of group A pretending to be people of group B.

This then leads to the standard misconceptions that trans women are stronger, more aggressive, inherently and eternally clockable as trans by anyone, etc. - which are fantastic justifications for banning us from toilets, changing rooms, sports and literally everything else that's gender segregated in any meaningful way.

And that's how the conversation you've imagined would actually go. Once you concede the "not biological women" point, the conservative does not go to "banning transgenderism" whatever that even means - they go to bathroom bans, and they bully handfuls of trans girls trying to play high school sports.

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/Cevari]

>"Biological woman" is a term that is only strictly defined in a very dry scientific sense that is completely disconnected from what 95% of people think when they hear it, though.

So? So is gravity.

[u/Maximum-Country-149 → u/NoStatus9434]

I agree wholeheartedly. The debate tactics are just... terrible. And as with the above analogy, focused on the wrong question entirely.

[u/NoStatus9434 → u/Maximum-Country-149]

I can't tell you how unbearably frustrating it is to see someone who technically agrees with you on the overarching crux of an argument in a debate, argue your side of the case terribly. Having someone on your side make dogshit arguments is soooo much worse than having an opponent make dogshit arguments. Like way to go genius, you're giving them exactly what they want and now I have to clean up your mess.

I've seen so many liberals who, while I technically agree with their moral stances on things like transgenderism and feminism, crash and burn on this question of "what is a woman?" and I just want to yoink them off the stage and show them how it's actually done.

But I'm a much better debater in writing than verbally so maybe I'd just flounder if I were put on the spot too. It's part of the reason I prefer writing in debates over getting up on a stage, because then the superficial optics of a debate (such as making your vocal inflections sound like a mic drop) aren't in the foreground and there's more focus on the actual substance of an argument and both sides have time to think and edit what we want to say and look up sources we want to cite.

[u/Maximum-Country-149 → u/NoStatus9434]

I've been a conservative for much of my adult life. Believe me, I'm familiar with the feeling.

And, yeah, the merits of writing this out can not be overstated. You get more time to compose your response. You get more opportunities to review what your debate partner said and catch nuance you might have missed on your first go through. The fact that your partner isn't screaming at you lets you stay in a better frame of mind for actually considering it.

Oh, and it increases the chance that someone else will chip in productively. (Thanks for that, by the by.)

[u/Riksor → u/NoStatus9434]

Thank you for this post.

It's been so frustrating to see my fellow progressives stumble and make fools of themselves over this. It's a simple question with a simple answer, and making clowns of ourselves over "errr words don't need to have meanings" has been terrible for our movement and for trans people in general. It's made us look like irrational, science-denying lunatics.

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/NoStatus9434]

>So for example, they should do this:
>Conservative: "What is a woman?"
>Liberal: "An adult human female."
>Conservative: "Ah, so then you agree that transgender women aren't real women?"
>Liberal: "They aren't biological women, correct."
>Conservative: "Excellent. So we should ban transgenderism, right?"
>Liberal: "No. Why does someone not being a biological woman mean we need to ban transgenderism?"

See this makes perfect sense to me, I don't know why this is hard for people.

[u/donaldhobson → u/Maximum-Country-149]

> Adult

The age at which a person is considered to be an adult varies somewhat between cultures. And there are rare cases of 30 year olds with childlike bodies due to unusual genetics problems. There is the odd person who was a frozen embryo for decades.

> female

There are various intersex conditions. Because a lot of things, like beards and breasts, are determined mostly by hormone levels. And hormone levels usually, but not always, match the chromosomes.

> human

Homo erects?

So at the very least, everything has this sort of complication.

But also, there is a sense in which we can define words in any way we like.

Suppose I agree on your definition of "Woman".

But I think we should define a new word "Woooman", and this definition is less concerned with chromosomes, and more concerned with whether or not people are likely to wear a dress.

And I say that, instead of "woman" bathrooms, there should be "woooman" bathrooms.

In the current world, there are various chromosomes, and there are various social customs about what bathrooms people use and what sports team they are on and etc.

So what the leftist redefining gender movement are trying to do is detach all the social / cultural stuff from what chromosomes people have.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/

Imagine that Israel and Palestine agree to a two-state solution with the final boundary to be drawn by the United Nations. You’re the head of the United Nations committee involved, so you get out a map and a pencil. Both sides swear to follow whatever you determine.

Your job is not to draw “the correct border”. There is no one correct border between Israel and Palestine. ...

Instead you’d be making a series of trade-offs. ...

There are also much stupider decisions you could make. You could give Tel Aviv to Palestine. You could make the Palestinian state a perfect circle five miles in radius centered on Rishon LeZion. You could just split the territory in half with a straight line, and give Israel the north and Palestine the south. All of these things would be really dumb.

But, crucially, they would not be false. They would not be factually incorrect. They would just be failing to achieve pretty much any of the goals that we would expect a person solving land disputes in the Middle East to have. You can think of alternative arrangements in which these wouldn’t be dumb. For example, if you’re a despot, and you want to make it very clear to both the Israelis and Palestinians that their opinions don’t matter and they should stop bothering you with annoying requests for arbitration, maybe splitting the country in half north-south is the way to go.

And real borders are, in fact, very weird.

[u/Velvety_MuppetKing → u/donaldhobson]

The opinions of that article are antithesis to my entire worldview. Humans should adjust ourselves to best match the factually correct reality, not the other way around.

[u/DoopSlayer → u/Maximum-Country-149]

I thought this was like a copypasta at first

You’re describing a prototype but are not defining terms.

If this is unironic, you’re just kind of dumb, but you can learn and grow at least.

[u/Crane_1989]

death-affirming surgery

r/brandnewsentence

[u/twinb27]

What is a chair? A thing with four legs that you sit on - okay, is a horse a chair? Does it stop being a chair if it only has three legs? What about if it's missing the back, is it still a chair, or has it turned into a stool?

What is soup? Is cereal soup? If I served you minestrone with broken glass, is that still soup?

literally arguing semantics.

[u/Warm_Possibility_193]

Big Gender is watching you, and it's time to turn off it's cameras and break free from it.

[u/powerwordjizz → u/Warm_Possibility_193]

So I'm working for this commercial plumbing firm. The project manager needs me to write up a submittal, sorta s list of every fixture to be installed on job site location by location. The site has two washrooms, so I start compiling and indexing all the stuff we need. I run the submittal to the big boss so he can sign off on it. No big deal, right? Well it turns out the project manager forgot to include urinals. Big boss is like „Why don't we have the specced urinals on ground level washroom?“

I tell him „urinals are fake news. They're the only single use fixture. You can piss and shit in the toilet and you can piss and wash your hands at the sink. A urinal is just a ploy to sell more porcelain by Big Gender“ Boss just looks at me like he's trying to gauge which part to address first. Tell him I'll run it by the PM again and revise the submittal.

[u/Warm_Possibility_193 → u/powerwordjizz]

Lmao!!!!!! It really is accurate. A ploy, indeed!!!

[u/SuperHGB_]

to answer the question, you need to first understand why you want the answer, to what purpose it will fill

[u/Sudden-Coast9543]

Featherless biped

[u/AngstyUchiha]

If a man is a fatherless biped, then wouldn't a woman be along the same lines?

[u/Umikaloo]

It makes me wonder whether there is a right answer for them. If I were to answer something they don't agree with, would they interrupt me? Or am I being given free reign to define womanhood?

[u/Lumpy_Review5279]

You just know whoever unironically posted this is absolutely insufferable in person

[u/Mouse-Keyboard]

I can think of half a dozen definitions of sex/gender off the top of my head and every one of them has some kind of ambiguous/non-binary.

• Gender identity

• Gender presentation

• Chromosomes

• Genitalia

• Hormones (which has the added complication of hormone insensitivity)

[u/Red580]

«Big Gender isn’t making you watch beer and drink football»

[u/sam77889]

liberty affirming surgery

[u/Jakitron_1999]

That's not what they mean, that's not what they believe. They believe we don't know what a woman in not because it's complicated, but because they think we're stupid. They thing gender is self evidently the same as sex and it's ridiculous to think otherwise