"She", not "he", guys

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

You know, I really thought it was a point to ponder. Written in my typical hand of wit, but a point indeed. If you didn't agree, you could have said so and said why.

But no, you go off on me and make me feel small and stupid for thinking of it. You throw in your little Lifetime Scholar Debate words. You imply a lot of people should have their pitchforks in their hand in response to ME, and there is something WRONG with them if they don't.

This is why you are cruel. I've not been cruel to Ibram. I've said I don't understand. I've tried to think of how maybe I could feel something similar. I've tried to discuss (with the exception of the ever unpleasant Drax) but you don't like that so you aim to hurt.

Yes, Dana, you. You aimed to hurt.

I can understand your disappointment in some people in the Cellar. Will you ever see that in your unending crusade to right all that is wrong you HURT people who are really only trying to get along, understand, and goddammit maybe even laugh about it sometimes.

The most obvious form of a person who has no class is always pointing out why others are 'lesser.'

I honestly thought you were using an absurd example to make your point. My apologies.


But I do think you've been cruel to Ibs. Maybe unintentionally. I do think this thread is cruel to its core though. because as I said above, it isn't an abstract matter, it is real and it is someone's life. Someone here.


Given your particular connection with issues around mental health: how would you feel if in order to discuss whether or not depression is over diagnosed someone started a thread to discuss it and used you as an example of someone who'd been misdiagnosed and was on the party pills unecessarily?

[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Given your particular connection with issues around mental health: how would you feel if in order to discuss whether or not depression is over diagnosed someone started a thread to discuss it and used you as an example of someone who'd been misdiagnosed and was on the party pills unecessarily?

I see now. Ya know, it never was about her.

[DanaC]

Wasn't running. Just finding it all really distasteful. Not as an abstract topic. If that's all this was I owuldnt be upset. But because this was specifically targeted at an individual.

It's cruel, and fucking low rent.

I approach gender from a histrorical perspective, so although I have done some reading around transgender issues (as part of my work with the Adult Health and Social care Scruitiny panel during my time as a councillor) most of what I have readily to hand is to do with eighteenth-century gender constructions.

However, a quick google nets quite a bit of stuff. Starting with:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7689007.stm

Australian researchers have identified a significant link between a gene involved in testosterone action and male-to-female transsexualism.

DNA analysis from 112 male-to-female transsexual volunteers showed they were more likely to have a longer version of the androgen receptor gene.

The genetic difference may cause weaker testosterone signals, the team reported in Biological Psychiatry.

However, other genes are also likely to play a part, they stressed.

Increasingly, biological factors are being implicated in gender identity.

One study has shown that certain brain structures in male-to-female transsexual people are more "female like".

In the latest study, researchers looked for potential differences in three genes known to be involved in sex development - coding for the androgen receptor, the oestrogen receptor and an enzyme which converts testosterone to oestrogen.

Comparison of the DNA from the male to female transsexual participants with 258 controls showed a significant link with a long version of the androgen receptor gene and transsexualism.

Testosterone

It is known that longer versions of the androgen receptor gene are associated with less efficient testosterone signalling.

This reduced action of the male sex hormone may have an effect on gender development in the womb, the researchers speculated.

"We think that these genetic differences might reduce testosterone action and under masculinise the brain during foetal development," said researcher Lauren Hare from Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research.

Co-author Professor Vincent Harley added: "There is a social stigma that transsexualism is simply a lifestyle choice, however our findings support a biological basis of how gender identity develops."

Although this is the largest genetic study of transsexualism to date, the researchers now plan to see if the results can be replicated in a larger population.

Terry Reed from the Gender Identity Research and Education Society said she was convinced of a biological basis to transsexualism.

"This study appears to reinforce earlier studies which have indicated that, in some trans people, there may be a genetic trigger to the development of an atypical gender identity.

"However, it may be just one of several routes and, although it seems extremely likely that a biological element will always be present in the aetiology of transsexualism, it's unlikely that developmental pathways will be the same in all individuals."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7689007.stm

[DanaC]

I have been over harsh. I'm sorry Inf.

[DanaC]

Henry, you are absolutely entitled to your opinion of what that all means in practice, as we all are.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why you had to start a whole thread to discuss someone else's gender. Y'know, you want to tackle this shit when Ibs pulls you up for saying 'he' well that's just fine. Don't like it, but hey, when have either of ever particularly liked the other's point of view? But starting a thread about this was cruel. Unecessarily cruel.

Ibs is strident and a tad precious about it all at times, but one reason for that is the journey she has gone on to arrive at this point. She is also still young. With all the brazen zeal of the young. But the young, and particularly those who have struggled to such a degree with their sense of identity are also fragile.

This thread is cruel. Your views are your views, but this thread is unnecessry and cruel.

[henry quirk]

"you are absolutely entitled to your opinion"

But, Dana, that's (one of my) point(s): that he is 'he' is not an opinion, it 'is' fact.

He may 'feel' like a she, but he is not a 'she'.

#

"I'm just having a hard time understanding why you had to start a whole thread to discuss someone else's gender."

Strictly speaking this thread is about appropriate use of pronouns.

Gender (Ibram's) is just the specific example of misuse.

#

"...starting a thread about this was cruel. Unecessarily cruel."

Eye of the beholder.

#

"Ibs is strident and a tad precious about it all at times, but one reason for that is the journey she has gone on to arrive at this point. She is also still young. With all the brazen zeal of the young. But the young, and particularly those who have struggled to such a degree with their sense of identity are also fragile."

All possibly true. All irrelevant.

#

"This thread is cruel. Your views are your views, but this thread is unnecessry and cruel."

Again: eye of the beholder.

Your participation (as well as Ibram's) is solely your (and his) responsibility.

If you view this as an exercise in cruelty: then opt out or defend him with fact.

Again: appeals to courtesy are irrelevant.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

Again: appeals to courtesy are irrelevant.

Yep. I got that.

[henry quirk]

[classicman]

Dana - I agree with you - it was Ibs posting which "sparked" the thought of starting this thread.
Calling me a "cheerleader for IM - Are you high? seriously! Have you not been around the last few YEARS? ferfuxache
Moving along...
Where we part ways is that it was cruel... unnecessary.. whatever. Why? How?
I think the cellar is a fantastic place and this is EXACTLY what we should be doing. Ibs came out to us all freely. Fine. No we are done with that/him/her/shim/whatever. Lets actually talk, share thoughts, discuss the issue. If not here, where? Again - the OP was:

If he has a penis, is genetically male, then -- despite *self-definition -- he is 'he'.
Yes? No? Opinions?

I'll try and start with something you posted. Again - leave ibs out of it. Lets try to keep it GENERAL, not specific.

The colour of one's skin is pretty much set from birth. The only psychological impact of skin colour is where it places you in the world. Skin colour does not bring with it an ever shifting, ever developing hormonal stew. Skin colour and 'race' do not show any differences in brain structure or function.

One's gender is also. To the rest of your post - Really? One's psyche is not affected by skin color? Oh please share with me how that works. I have zero proof, but my initial reaction is to disagree wholeheartedly.

[Stormieweather]

Lotta black and white thinking here, without any room for gray.

It's either/or, can never change or adapt or mutate or be "different"...

Hmmph. I disagree.

Hermaphrodites are both he and she. Are they just nothing then?

Some of what many of you seem to be saying is that we know everything there is to know about gene biology, that once we are born, our genes are set and clearly defined as a simple XX or XY.

And that is simply not the case.

My point is, there is a lot more to gender than just what is between our legs. And I see no reason anyone has to be confined to such simplistic labels as he or she just because humankind has a great deal to learn about genomics.

Genomics

Gender, typically described in terms of masculinity and femininity, is a social construction that varies across different cultures and over time. (6) There are a number of cultures, for example, in which greater gender diversity exists and sex and gender are not always neatly divided along binary lines such as male and female or homosexual and heterosexual. The Berdache in North America, the fa’afafine (Samoan for “the way of a woman”) in the Pacific, and the kathoey in Thailand are all examples of different gender categories that differ from the traditional Western division of people into males and females. Further, among certain North American native communities, gender is seen more in terms of a continuum than categories, with special acknowledgement of “two-spirited” people who encompass both masculine and feminine qualities and characteristics. It is apparent, then, that different cultures have taken different approaches to creating gender distinctions, with more or less recognition of fluidity and complexity of gender.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by classicman

. To the rest of your post - Really? One's psyche is not affected by skin color? Oh please share with me how that works. I have zero proof, but my initial reaction is to disagree wholeheartedly.

I didn't say it had no effect on the pysche, but that any effect is entirely cultural.

There are many places in the world where people go their whole lives not seeing people of a different colour. In such a place a child is unlikely to consider their skin colour in any deeper terms than the shape of their foot, the colour of their hair, or the length of their fingers. It is simply a physical feature. They'd be aware of it. But not as an important issue of identity. Race likewise only becomes an important coponent of identity when set against other races. Unless one is raised in a place where races mix or are in tension, it need never be something consciously thought about during childhood.

There is nothing inherent about skin colour or 'race' to affect the development of a child. However, ALL children go through psycho-sexual development as they grow. beginning (if I remember my child psych correctly) around the age of three.

Psycho-sexual development is fundamental to the human experience, it is a fundamental process which all healthy humans go through. The way that manifests and what it means differs from one to another culture, but the fact of it's happening is universal.

Skin colour, literally is skin deep. There are no differences in brain structure, or in brain chemistry relating to skin colour.

Psycho-sexual identities appear to have correlating brain structrures and brain chemistry. Whilst the differences between 'male' and 'female' brains are minor, they are measurable. Work in his field continues to show that such measurable differences also exist between the brains of straight, gay and bisexual people. Similarly it seems from the work being done in this field that measurable differences exist between the brains of people with expected gender identities and people with trans gender identities.

It is really not the same thing as waking up one morning and thinking one is black when one is in fact white.



[eta] further to that: you could lock a child in a room from the age of 2 with no human company beyond the presentation of meals and the taking away of waste, and whilst they will probably be unable to get to grips woth language or social interaction, they will still have been through psycho-sexual development. The results would be warped, and confused, but the process would still have occurred.

[Pico and ME]

Dana's right, not very many here would purposely start a thread meant to blindside another poster's current struggle.

I dont mind calling Ibram a her, although I probably will stumble a lot and use him by mistake. The science of it doesnt really play into it, either.

[Ibby]

Henry, your definition of "gender" is wrong. you are incorrectly conflating "genetic sex", "physical sex", and "gender" - all three of which are vaguely related, but are still entirely separate.
The truth is that gender has been defined so many different ways by so many different cultures that you have NO grounds on which to claim "objectivity", "fact", or "science" behind your extremely narrow definition of it. And pronouns, any linguist can tell you, are used according to genders.
You have only your own narrow definition of gender to back your bigotry, and no possible way to "legitimately" defend that definition on any sort of factual, objective level.
you're stuck trying to defend your indefensibility by ignoring everything that contradicts your bigotry, and you know it.

[henry quirk]

"Henry, your definition of "gender" is wrong. you are incorrectly conflating "genetic sex", "physical sex", and "gender" - all three of which are vaguely related, but are still entirely separate."

Actually: no.

Read my OP...I mention 'gender' not once.

You introduced the term.

Again: my mistake was allowing you and others to conflate my *OP with gender.

*'If he has a penis, is genetically male, then -- despite self-definition -- he is 'he'.'

#

"And pronouns, any linguist can tell you, are used according to genders."

Then, for my clarification...

Define: 'he' (as it pertains to a human individual).

Define: 'she' (as it pertains to a human individual).

[BigV]

"She", not "he", guys
If he has a penis, is genetically male, then -- despite *self-definition -- he is 'he'.

Yes?

No?

Opinions?









*that Ibram self-defines as 'girl' is fine by me; that he believes any one else is obligated to address him as a girl (for no other reason than because he wants it that way) is absurd.

Fine. Back to your opening post.

Hes are hes. Shes are shes.

Ibram's belief (whatever that may be) is absurd.

hq's belief (whatever that may be) is absurd. I cite your own logic surrounding Ali's and John's posts.

Your argument is unsound, as you are not obligated to do anything. Your opening post is a great big setup. You say it was hasty, sloppy. Ok.

I will agree that for human individuals, it is common to refer to those who have a penis as "he". I do not agree with your extensions of that line of reasoning, especially when it comes to defining gender. Nor do I agree with extensions of that line of reasoning that the usage of "he" implies having a penis.

What is this thread about hq? Is it about Ibram's penis? Is it about pronouns? Is it about feeling obligated? Is it about the frission of gender/language/anatomy? Are you seeking to learn something? Or are you seeking to state something? Are you striving to persuade others or are you trying to clarify your own understanding? Something else?

Do you give a shit what Ibram, or many others here say in their posts? Why are you bothering? What the hell is your point, man?

And by "man", I mean... "label written 'henry quirk' which is associated with posts on this forum". ffs.