[RD] Gender is a social construct.

[Caesar of Bread]

So here’s my opinion: There are inside and outside building blocks of a human. The inside, a human are able to and should be able to change. The outside, they should not be able to change. So yes, someone can change from a man to a woman or nonbinary or whatever, but no, a white person cannot become black.
Outside blocks - who they are, their race, ethnicity, appearance (partially)
Inside blocks - what they like, sexuality, gender, religion, appearance (partially)

 

[TruePurple]

So here’s my opinion: There are inside and outside building blocks of a human. The inside, a human are able to and should be able to change. The outside, they should not be able to change. So yes, someone can change from a man to a woman or nonbinary or whatever, but no, a white person cannot become black.
Outside blocks - who they are, their race, ethnicity, appearance (partially)
Inside blocks - what they like, gender, religion, appearance (partially)

I'm not sure how that relates to whether "gender" is only a social construct or a inherent part of ones nature.

 

[sophie]

I'm not sure how that relates to whether "gender" is only a social construct or a inherent part of ones nature.

it’s both.

 

[TruePurple]

it’s both.

It can't be BOTH, when I use the word "only" Also you said it was "neither" before. So it doesn't seem like you have anything useful to say here. You think it's neither and both of two contradictory things. Whatever you say.

 

[TruePurple]

People are upset that a lot of your comments are dunking on Trans people.

I wanted to point out this falsehood, I won't get into this BS though. I won't continually defend myself against you ragging on me.

 

[sophie]

It can't be BOTH, when I use the word "only"

and yet it is.

the fact that both male and female genders AND trans people appear everywhere we’ve ever looked would not be possible if there weren’t some component of gender which is innate to humanity.

The fact that gender norms change over time and across societies, and that trans people consciously recognize and exercise the ability to choose an identity contrary to what society tells them is innate and immutable demonstrate that it is socially constructed.

Both are true, and so gender must be both innate and socially contingent.

 

[TruePurple]

Both are true, and so gender must be both innate and socially contingent.

You said it was "neither" earlier. It sure is convenient to not give a solid answer about your positions so that you may endlessly goalpost move on me.

 

[sophie]

You said it was "neither" earlier. It sure is convenient to not give a solid answer about your positions so that you may endlessly goalpost move on me.

Being trans is neither “the mind of one gender and the body of another” nor “adopting a style of dress like goths”

Gender is both biologically innate and socially contingent.

These are not mutually exclusive, and do not contradict, but rather correspond.

My mind and my body are both female. How I know that to be true and what that means externally arise from the confluence of innate biological processes and my social experience.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

You said it was "neither" earlier. It sure is convenient to not give a solid answer about your positions so that you may endlessly goalpost move on me.

It sure is convenient that you're reducing trans people and their identities to a philosophical quandary that you're somehow informed of, enough to comment, rather than as a topic in which you have a very loose grasp judging by your previous posts

Makes it easier for you to claim it's merely a "disagreement" rather than you effectively labelling us as confused and wrong about ourselves and that you know better

 

[Caesar of Bread]

Being trans is neither “the mind of one gender and the body of another” nor “adopting a style of dress like goths”

Gender is both biologically innate and socially contingent.

These are not mutually exclusive, and do not contradict, but rather correspond.

My mind and my body are both female. How I know that to be true and what that means externally arise from the confluence of innate biological processes and my social experience.

I agree with Soph here.

 

[TruePurple]

It sure is convenient that you're reducing trans people and their identities to a philosophical quandary that you're somehow informed of, enough to comment, rather than as a topic in which you have a very loose grasp judging by your previous posts

Makes it easier for you to claim it's merely a "disagreement" rather than you effectively labelling us as confused and wrong about ourselves and that you know better

I am talking about belief systems. I have just as might right to my belief system as you do to yours. I will not accept you saying that your belief system is truer than mine even to the point of accusing me of ignorance.

 

[sophie]

I am talking about belief systems. I have just as might right to my belief system as you do to yours. I will not accept you saying that your belief system is truer than mine even to the point of accusing me of ignorance.

Your "belief system" (properly, theory of gender) fails to account for some facts which hers does account for. In that sense hers can be said to be truer than yours.

 

[soundjata]

I personally am very binary - I thought of myself "100% masc" (albeit questioning in significant ways) for quite a while, and then in figuring out I am trans I now am "100% fem", and the guts of my gender coin-flip (replace with whatever binary metaphor you like) happened as quickly as I could manage. But I absolutely recognize a gender spectrum that is at least two-dimensional and possibly 3D. Much as pretty much everyone agrees that there's a lot of folks that are in between 100% homosexual and 100% heterosexual (pan, bi, and all the rest) and with a y-axis of way into the nympho (hyper?) sexual and down into the a- or demi- and so on. Me being binary in my own gender doesn't preclude nonbinary or agender genders any more than me being ace or Catholic precludes heteroflexible people or Protestants, Buddhists, atheists, or agnostics from existing (though the religious example has the significant hole of everyone thinking everyone else is actually wrong, I suppose).
Want to eliminate gender? Go ahead, it's a social construct, right? Eliminate race and ethnicity too please, while you're at it. But I will still be happy when skirt goes spinny, even with people yelling "clothes aren't inherently gendered" to my face. When my great-grandchild grows up in a post-gender world, xey can have a cisgender-style mindset and maybe that'll be okay too.

I like how you present relationships inside a nuanced spectrum.
Clearly a better description of (sexual?) reality than other stereotypes.

Yet I fail to understand how "gender" applies (in society) outside of intimate relations.

Does "gender" matter in other kind of rapports?
How so? What are the perceptible characteristics showing a masculine or feminine orientation?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I am talking about belief systems. I have just as might right to my belief system as you do to yours. I will not accept you saying that your belief system is truer than mine even to the point of accusing me of ignorance.

But you are ignorant of trans people's lives and experience, that's your problem to deal and cope with, not mine, what you got a problem with me expressing that fact?

 

[TruePurple]

But you are ignorant of trans people's lives and experience, that's your problem to deal and cope with, not mine, what you got a problem with me expressing that fact?

It's not a fact, it's slander.

 

[TruePurple]

Your "belief system" (properly, theory of gender) fails to account for some facts which hers does account for. In that sense hers can be said to be truer than yours.

AKA you think your side has spit out more truth than mine because you say so.

State your opinion and belief plainly and allow it to be open to criticism like I have. Just calling me ignorant and wrong is not "criticism of a idea" BTW.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Okay but you are being ignorant and wrong about trans people's lives, identities and experiences and i know that because your conclusion so far is tacitly that trans femmes are effectively dressing up (and god know's what you believe about trans mascs) and aren't who they say they are, what else am i supposed to take away from that?

You're telling me im wrong about myself and that im effectively delusional and anything less than me pushing back is an acknowledgement of those two things your position represents and i'm not going to let someone who doesn't know anything about me and is profoundly ignorant of my community to dictate my very identity

 

[sophie]

AKA you think your side has spit out more truth than mine because you say so.

State your opinion and belief plainly and allow it to be open to criticism like I have. Just calling me ignorant and wrong is not "criticism of a idea" BTW.

I've made my position clear on multiple occasions across many threads over the years. I don't feel a need to lay it out again.

What matters at base is that your theory of gender has failed to account for what trans people say about themselves and it fails to account for the existence of trans misogyny.

It also fails to account for the apparent contradiction I highlighted above towards theories that hold gender to be absolutely innate or absolutely mutable.

 

[Kyriakos]

The either-or dichotomy is there for a very good reason in any system which can provide a proven conclusion. The reason is that if things can be both a and not a, at the same time and in the same way, then nothing follows from this.
This is known by many names, eg "law of excluded middle", and is often attributed to Aristotle (because he entirely explicitly stated it, as well as examined it as a necessary reduction).
More directly, in this topic (since obviously it doesn't just apply here), it means that while you can think gender is both innate and not innate, you should at least understand such a position will disable any way of backing a claim about gender.
Perhaps backing claims on this was already impossible, but even if it wasn't, such a stance makes it certainly impossible.

Should it matter? Not to the individual. But it takes away aspirations of formalized, agreed upon views, as in law or other communal systems.
Everyone, past some level, operates in a personal pool of ambiguity. No one can turn that into an argument within a shared system. It's how people continue living despite having incompatible views. It's why you wouldn't self-combust if you honestly thought the Taylor series is a show about balloons.

 

[TruePurple]

your conclusion so far is tacitly that trans femmes are effectively dressing up

False