Reality isn’t racist. If black people do things differently, we most definitely should have a special concept to describe what they’re doing.
If irrelevant considerations were relevant …
Reality isn’t racist. If black people do things differently, we most definitely should have a special concept to describe what they’re doing.
But they don’t, which is the point…
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No [physiological] marker has yet been found for gays, either, but most would argue that homosexuality is innate, given how many people identify that way.
Put Judy Garland on and monitor a guy’s vital signs.
Lol Reidy.. 
These days it would have to be Lady GaGa, Beyoncé, or Lana Del Ray.
If irrelevant considerations were relevant …
Nothing’s irrelevant.
When it comes to conceptualization according to objectivism… some things are.
Nothing’s irrelevant.
Nicky, you seemed to be suggesting “if norms exist, they exist for a reason”. My example was saying that if we introduced a concept for “what black people do”, but reality was exactly the same, then there is no basis to introduce the concept. Anything supposedly confirming the concept is only a result of society enforcing a norm. Your consideration was irrelevant because we know for a fact there is nothing that black people do -because- they’re black.
Gender is like that I think. And anyway, I don’t think most trans people say they’re trans because they ignore or use “opposite” gender behaviors. Transgender is a broader thing, transsexual is when the person has surgery to alter their sex.
I hardly find such a topic worth discussing but this:
Transgender is a broader thing, transsexual is when the person has surgery to alter their sex.
statement from Louie is interesting.
Has anyone here heard of a person who “changes their sex” ( removed the physical evidence of their sex) who didn’t also consider themselves to be the “gender” they are pretending to be by having the operation?
In other words, who chops off their male equipment but considers themselves male in gender nonetheless ?
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Highly recommended: “Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference” by the feminist neuroscientist Cordelia Fine, who does a good job of destroying myths about innate gender difference. There is also Anne Fausto-Sterling’s earlier “Myths Of Gender: Biological Theories About Women And Men,” which is great for anyone who thinks “metaphysics” or “waging a war on reality” prevents someone from having something besides a distinct male or female gender identity. Modern research has shown that gender is more of a continuum, where there are people who don’t fall into one of two predetermined categories.
2046, the title alone doesn’t inspire… Can you summarize her argument on gender and “how the mind and society creates difference” (the definition of social subjectivism)
Would anyone anywhere argue for just two gender categories? “Effeminate man” isn’t a newly-coined term. On the other hand, it’s very obvious that cutting up your genitals does nothing to affect maleness or femaleness, which is the “metaphysical” part.
Suppose I “feel” I have more in common with dophins than I do with humans…
I see your point, but there’s something that I don’t think carries over exactly. If you removed your hands or feet, life would be objectively much harder for you. That would clearly hurt you.
However, with a few trivial exceptions, our sex organs are good for one thing- sex. So if we say that one type of genitalia is best (even for a certain person) we must necessarily say what’s best for sex. While this is, in principle, the same sort of question as whether it’s good to have hands, I don’t believe that I have enough information to properly generalize about it. I’m open to hearing what you think, but I’d like to hear the reasoning behind any positive assertions about it.
Specifically, there are some things we can do to ourselves that would be harmful (like trying to become a dolfin) and some such things that are helpful (like vaccinations); what is natural is not always good.
If you know of some fact which makes sexual alterations objectively good or bad then I’m all ears.
Nothing’s irrelevant.
Not metaphysically, but we have to make the distinction epistemologically; otherwise we could never know one thing until we knew everything.
On the other hand, it’s very obvious that cutting up your genitals does nothing to affect maleness or femaleness, which is the “metaphysical” part.
If “male” and “female” do not primarily refer to what we’ve got under the hood (regardless of how we got it) then what do they refer to?
2046, the title alone doesn’t inspire… Can you summarize her argument on gender and “how the mind and society creates difference” (the definition of social subjectivism)
Why would that would be “the definition” of social subjectivism? What’s your argument for that? Here you have a very dense collection of scientific research that collects data going back very far debunking notions that gender differences are largely biological, why would that be subjectivism? If something is based on conventions, stereotypes, biases, traditions, mistaken notions, etc., that would be an objective fact, not a subjective one. Do you think the title implies something like “the existence of penises and vaginas are created by the mind and society” because that’s the only way your statement could make sense. Just get the book if this topic interests you, the first one is actually very approachable despite it being very well academically sourced. Don’t put the philosophical cart before the scientific horse. If research in various fields shows that your concept of gender is flawed, then one ought to change that concept, not conclude a priori that it can’t be metaphysically so.
On the other hand, it’s very obvious that cutting up your genitals does nothing to affect maleness or femaleness, which is the “metaphysical” part.
You know, actual transgendered individuals… which is what we are talking about here… would beg to differ with that statement. Might even find your characterization of “cutting up” the gentitals, as if it were some kind of needless mutilation, to be quite ignorant and offensive.
Might even find your characterization of “cutting up” the gentitals, as if it were some kind of needless mutilation, to be quite ignorant and offensive.
Isn’t that what we’re trying to determine?
Would anyone anywhere argue for just two gender categories? “Effeminate man” isn’t a newly-coined term. On the other hand, it’s very obvious that cutting up your genitals does nothing to affect maleness or femaleness, which is the “metaphysical” part.
- It’s not “cutting up” as the surgery is intended to preserve sexual sensation. Some people specifically avoid surgery because it can be risky.
- Your physical traits are important to your sense of self, even though the physical trait doesn’t determine your psychology in a significant way. Changing your physical traits is less important, but it does matter. Otherwise, anyone who has plastic surgery is “assaulting” reality. It’s like saying “slicing your breasts open does nothing to affect self-identity”. But a person getting breast reduction may easily say “the breasts don’t cause my identity crisis - I’m putting my body in a shape that I’d prefer”.
2046, the title alone doesn’t inspire… Can you summarize her argument on gender and “how the mind and society creates difference” (the definition of social subjectivism)
No it isn’t. Rand defined it as “'the view that it is not the consciousness of individuals, but of groups, that creates reality”. Groups don’t create reality or truth, no. But groups can create social norms that people respond to in daily life. Not all norms are objective, some are totally subjective. Societies CAN create arbitrary differences. To suggest norms MUST be valid by virtue of existing is social subjectivism - society declaring it to be so makes it so, thereby creating reality in its image. The “difference” in the title, if I remember the author correctly, refers to arbitrary or invalid differences created by society. Those differences are “how males think” and “how females think”, but those differences aren’t really there - sometimes, the putative difference is terrible analysis of stats by scientists.
You know, actual transgendered individuals… which is what we are talking about here… would beg to differ with that statement. Might even find your characterization of “cutting up” the gentitals, as if it were some kind of needless mutilation, to be quite ignorant and offensive.
As you knew when you replied with this, I don’t agree with those transgendered individuals.
- It’s not “cutting up” as the surgery is intended to preserve sexual sensation. Some people specifically avoid surgery because it can be risky.
Intent isn’t execution. But before specifics of the surgery are discussed, the question that should be asked and answered definitively is, “Does the surgery achieve its purpose?” If not, at minimum it’s pointless and risky to cut up your body. I use “cut up” or “chop up” on purpose, by the way, because I think it’s disturbing to talk about it casually, and I also think it’s ridiculous how some people get offended when you call it what it is: chopping up. The fact is, the surgery doesn’t change someone’s sex, doesn’t change how they feel about their own gender being mismatched with their body, messes up their sexual pleasure, and adds bizarre and endless new body upkeep. Why isn’t this non-option brushed aside as nonsense?
If “male” and “female” do not primarily refer to what we’ve got under the hood (regardless of how we got it) then what do they refer to?
As Louie noted, yes, genitals play into how you feel about yourself. I should have been more specific, and was referring to the gender “fix” for which the transgendered are seeking. But genitals isn’t everything that makes up a physiological gender. And, crude knife-and-stitches surgery certainly doesn’t cause you to become a different gender.