Transgenderism, sex and gender

[Traditio]

I wrote this on another forum; I thought that you guys would enjoy.

Caveats: 1. This is not a political thread. I wish to restrict the scope of the discussion to philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, neuro-science, etc. Please do not drag in a discussion of so-called "transgendered" political issues (e.g., bathrooms). 2. It also is not a thread either to bash, praise or otherwise discuss at all, any so-called "transgendered" persons. Again, please leave any discussion of people named "Jenner" out of the thread.

The topic of the thread is simply this: Do you think that sex and gender are really different things? If you do believe this, what reasons do you have to believe it? Furthermore, granted that there even is such a distinction, is it really "obvious" or "indisputable"? So, a few cursory considerations:

1a. When do you recall first hearing of a real distinction between sex and gender? Chances are, I am willing to bet, you learned of such a thing either 1. from socially liberal political propaganda (in all of its various forms and incarnations) or 2. (what is often the same thing) from a lecture in college (e.g., in cultural anthropology, sociology, psychology, or some other of the so-called "social sciences"). Here, I wish to pose the following consideration: if you were perfectly oblivious of the distinction (though you probably meaningfully used the words "sex," "gender," "male," "man," etc. well before your college courses) until an anthropology professor said they were different, is the difference really "indisputable" or "obvious"?

1b. It is interesting, in this context, to note that the word "gender" does not find its provenance in the so-called "social sciences." Gender, believe it or not, was primarily a grammatical term to describe nouns. In various languages, especially Romance languages, you'll find that nouns have gender. What are possible genders for nouns? Masculine, feminine and neuter. In Latin, for example, gaudium (joy) is neuter, scientia (science or knowledge) is feminine, and gladius (sword) is masculine.

It's not difficult to recognize that these so called "genders," grammatically speaking, are conceived on a kind of metaphor/analogy to the animal division of male and female. It is for this reason that persons for whom English is their second language sometimes use "he" and "she" to describe non-persons. A native Frenchman, for example, conversing with a native English speaker, might say something like: "The sea, she was stormy that night." The French word for sea (la mer) is feminine in gender. [In the event that any of you should decide to learn either Latin or Greek, you'll find that word gender is extremely important (it's important in French, Spanish, etc., but the importance is more marked in the more highly inflected languages].

When psychologists and other so-called "social scientists" decided to start talking about sex and gender, they took the latter as a foreign acquisition from grammar. They didn't make it up. Again, I repeat my question: if so-called "social scientists" had to steal the distinction from grammar, is it really so "obvious" or "indisputable" that sex and gender are really distinct?

Consider especially:

1c. The origin of the so called "social sciences." Auguste Comte. Look him up. I recommend chapter 10 of Etienne Gilson's Unity of Philosophical Experience. Like Marx, he was one of those "let us recreate man (and human society in general) in our image and likeness" kinds of "philosophical" ideologues. Particularly telling for me is one of my own experiences as an undergrad, where an undergraduate sociology professor actually told his students (one of whom was me) that a kind of "detached" sociology (I forget the term he used; but essentially, the kind of sociology which, on analogy with the natural sciences, is based, not on political activism and change, but on unbiased observation and data collection simply for the sake of knowing, with no further practical end), though it had its proponents in the 50s and 60s, is practically dead. The so-called "social sciences" arose from a revolutionary socio-political ideology and is filled with its fair share of political activists.

Again, I repeat my question: if the distinction arose in the so called "social sciences," is it really so "obvious" or "indisputable" that sex and gender are really distinct?

1d. I also wish to point out, as it has come to my attention, that the alleged distinction between sex and gender was made on practically an ad hoc basis specifically to describe the so-called "transgender" phenomenon. "Well, this person most certainly thinks that of herself as a man, but to all appearances presents as a woman. She even has female reproductive parts and a working uterus. I asked. She confirmed. Biological sex must be different from this other thing...(psychologist here opens up his old Latin grammar books)...ah, yes, gender!"

Again, I ask: is it really so indisputable?

I now offer some of the arguments in favor of this distinction.

2a: "Biological sex and gender must be distinct. This person has working female reproductive organs, but is insisting that she is a man. She genuinely believes it."

To my mind, this is the weakest argument of all, since it takes the form: "A believes that x is true. Therefore, it is true." The form of the argument changes not even in the slightest if you add that the belief is persistent.

The fact that A beliefs in x is no guarantor of the truth of x. People often are mistaken in their beliefs, even when genuinely and persistently held. Sometimes, these beliefs stem from mental disorders. The example of Descartes in the Meditations comes to mind: consider the man in the insane asylum who genuinely and persistently believes that his head is a pumpkin.

2b. "Biological sex and gander are obviously distinct. Gender simply means or otherwise implies social superstructure!"

This is slightly more convincing than 2a. The only problem is that it's clearly false, and this, for three reasons:

i. The answers to "what is your gender" are four-fold: "I am a man," "I am a boy," "I am a woman" and "I am a girl." You might even answer: "I am male" or "I am female." The use of the word "gender" as a sexual designator, as mentioned above, predates the use of the term in the so-called "social sciences," and even today, it has wider colloquial extension. "Man," "boy," "girl" and "woman" designate, to use the Aristotelian term, substances. [They indicate a substance, i.e., a hoc aliquid or tode ti (a this something). Substances are things which properly are or exist in their own right; substances are properly distinguished from accidents, which depend for their existence on a subject. Socrates is a substance. The paleness of his skin and the snubness of his nose are accidents of Socrates.] If gender simply means social superstructure (e.g., "wears dresses" or "likes to bake pies" or "has long hear") and other suchlike, then only properly accidental terms could be used in reply to gender. In fact, substantial terms are used. The answer to "what is your gender" is, not "I like to wear dresses, identify in a certain way, etc.," but, rather, to the contrary, "I am a man" or "I am a woman."

ii. Social superstructures vary between different societies. In some tribal African societies, as is my understanding, men wear jewelry and do other things that Americans would consider as more properly "feminine" behavior. Nonetheless, we do not claim that certain African men are actually women. No. We say that, in certain parts of tribal Africa, men wear jewelry.

In fact, I can only imagine that if an American "transgendered" person should find herself suddenly in tribal Africa in such a society, though she would have utterly shunned jewelry here in America, she would begin wearing it in tribal Africa. Why? Because such a person believes that she is a man, and in tribal Africa, men wear jewelry.

So, in fact, argument 2b above actually collapses into 2a: "She is really a man because she believes that she is a man."

iii. Because so called "transgendered" persons have not content simply with engaging in stereotypical behavior of the opposite genders. Rather, transgendered persons (at least sometimes) wish to have surgery to make themselves appear like persons of the opposite gender. The possession of a given set of genital organs and various other sexual characteristics is not social superstructure.

The most convincing argument that I've heard is the following:

2c. "So called 'transgendered' persons display brain states which generally are present in persons of the opposite sex. Therefore, they are really the opposite gender."

Unfortunately, this argument doesn't really work.

i. Why should I be led to think that the person's body developed incorrectly, but brain correctly...any more than the opposite? The "transgendered" person would have us believe that his brain is correctly wired, but that nature has encased him in the "wrong" body. Why shouldn't I think that the exact opposite has occurred? Why shouldn't I think that his body has developed correctly, but he suffers from a neurological disorder?

ii. Furthermore, the entire argument is just backwards and perverts the order of discovery. When we want to find out who is male and who is female, who a man and who a woman, we don't look at brain states. If anything, these neuroscientists initially looked at the brains of men and the brains of women, and then subsequently recognized that men generally have one kind of set of brain-states, whereas women have another. "To be a woman" or "to be a man" is prior both ontologically and epistemologically.

 

[Traditio]

And the thread was spammed by whiny liberals who had no actual arguments, but plenty of butt hurt.

Thread locked.

I objected to the locking of said thread and lack of action against the spammers.

And I was banned.

About par for the course.

Thanks Abraham Lincoln. Thanks Brown v. Board of Education. Thanks Lyndon B. Johnson.

You have doomed the country.

 

[Sherman]

The OP is very excellently written. You have this thing figured out.

Simply put gender in humans is determined by chromosomes. XX creates a female and XY creates a male. A certain madness has overtaken our culture.

 

[Traditio]

The OP is very excellently written. You have this thing figured out.

Simply put gender in humans is determined by chromosomes. XX creates a female and XY creates a male. A certain madness has overtaken our culture.

That madness, I honestly think, has been facilitated by people like Abe Lincoln, the judges who rendered the Brown v. Board of Education judgment, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Call me a racist, but consider the following:

What would the US look like if Abe Lincoln would have kept his nose out of Southern affairs and just let us secede from the union?

What if segregation remained the status quo?

What if civil rights were never a thing and were not passed?

This is ultimately what I argued in the "Black People Have Ruined America" thread...at much greater length. The OP of that thread was truly an epic OP, full of arguments, exposition, considerations, etc...and I deleted it.

The ending of slavery, the infringement on States' rights by the yankees, etc...it all paved the way for the modern madness with which we are now faced.

I guarantee you this: if the KKK were still a major political force, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Men would be men, and women would be women, and nobody would question this. (note, this is not an endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan).

Thanks Martin Luther King Jr. Thanks a lot.

 

[Sherman]

That madness, I honestly think, has been facilitated by people like Abe Lincoln, the judges who rendered the Brown v. Board of Education judgment, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Call me a racist, but consider the following:

What would the US look like if Abe Lincoln would have kept his nose out of Southern affairs and just let us secede from the union?

What if segregation remained the status quo?

What if civil rights were never a thing and were not passed?

This is ultimately what I argued in the "Black People Have Ruined America" thread...at much greater length. The OP of that thread was truly an epic OP, full of arguments, exposition, considerations, etc...and I deleted it.

The ending of slavery, the infringement on States' rights by the yankees, etc...it all paved the way for the modern madness with which we are now faced.

I guarantee you this: if the KKK were still a major political force, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Men would be men, and women would be women, and nobody would question this. (note, this is not an endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan).

Thanks Martin Luther King Jr. Thanks a lot.

​Attitudes like this do not solve anything. This same political parties that promoted enslaving other human beings are the same ones that promote this madness.

You didn't want this to be a political discussion, but you are making it a political discussion by bringing in racism. TOL is not the place for racism.

 

[PureX]

IThe topic of the thread is simply this: Do you think that sex and gender are really different things? If you do believe this, what reasons do you have to believe it? Furthermore, granted that there even is such a distinction, is it really "obvious" or "indisputable"?

Yes, I think they are different things. The term "sex" relative to an individual refers to the structure of their genitalia. While the term "gender" relative to an individual refers to their sexual identification. But this is a difference that the simpletons and ignoramuses among us can't grasp, and so they get all upset and confused whenever a difference is being alluded to. And to multiply their ignorance, "gender" identification is subjective. Meaning that I might assign a different gender to person "X" than person "X" might assign to themselves, or from the gender that person "Y" might assign to them. Because gender assignment is just that: assigned. And it may or may not correspond with the structure of the genitalia of the assignee, or with the criteria of other people.

And that's the real difference: criteria. We all pretty much agree on the criteria for designating an individual's sex because it is objective. We do not all agree on the criteria for assigning an individual's gender because it is subjective.

How do I know this? Well, partly because we are having this discussion/debate. And partly because I have personally known people who's designated sex does not coincide with their gender assignment, by themselves, and/or by others. And because I am capable of understanding the difference between a label and the thing/person to which the label is being attached.

 

[Traditio]

Yes, I think they are different things. The term "sex" relative to an individual refers to the structure of their genitalia. While the term "gender" relative to an individual refers to their sexual identification.

Gender indicates things like "man" or "woman."

What you are saying is that Bob is a man if and only if he identifies as a man.

I see no reason to accept this as true.

Because gender assignment is just that: assigned.

"Bob is a man if and only if manhood is assigned to him."

Why should I accept this as true?

 

[Right Divider]

Yes, I think they are different things. The term "sex" relative to an individual refers to the structure of their genitalia. While the term "gender" relative to an individual refers to their sexual identification. But this is a difference that the simpletons and ignoramuses among us can't grasp, and so they get all upset and confused whenever a difference is being alluded to. And to multiply their ignorance, "gender" identification is subjective. Meaning that I might assign a different gender to person "X" than person "X" might assign to themselves, or from the gender that person "Y" might assign to them. Because gender assignment is just that: assigned. And it may or may not correspond with the structure of the genitalia of the assignee, or with the criteria of other people.

And that's the real difference: criteria. We all pretty much agree on the criteria for designating an individual's sex because it is objective. We do not all agree on the criteria for assigning an individual's gender because it is subjective.

How do I know this? Well, partly because we are having this discussion/debate. And partly because I have personally known people who's designated sex does not coincide with their gender assignment, by themselves, and/or by others. And because I am capable of understanding the difference between a label and the thing/person to which the label is being attached.

You poor confused little infant.

 

[PureX]

Gender indicates things like "man" or "woman."

What you are saying is that Bob is a man if and only if he identifies as a man.

No, what I am saying is that Bob's sex is male. His gender may vary, however, depending on who is assigning it, and by what criteria.

"Bob is a man if and only if manhood is assigned to him."

Why should I accept this as true?

"Bob" is Bob. His sex is defined by his genitalia, and his gender is assigned to him subjectively, by whomever is doing the assigning. Bob is more than his sex. And Bob's gender involves much more than his genitalia. So I guess if you want to be a simpleton, and ignore who Bob is in favor of his genitalia, then for you, Bob is and can only ever be a human with a penis. But if you are not an ignoramus, or a simpleton, then you might want to consider Bob as a whole person, having not just genitalia, but a personality, and an idea of self, including a great many unique and individual proclivities that make him who he is among the rest of us.

But that's up to you.

 

[annabenedetti]

You poor confused little infant.

Surely you must have confused PureX with trad? I mean, how could you have missed this gem?

That madness, I honestly think, has been facilitated by people like Abe Lincoln, the judges who rendered the Brown v. Board of Education judgment, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Call me a racist, but consider the following:

What would the US look like if Abe Lincoln would have kept his nose out of Southern affairs and just let us secede from the union?

What if segregation remained the status quo?

What if civil rights were never a thing and were not passed?

This is ultimately what I argued in the "Black People Have Ruined America" thread...at much greater length. The OP of that thread was truly an epic OP, full of arguments, exposition, considerations, etc...and I deleted it.

The ending of slavery, the infringement on States' rights by the yankees, etc...it all paved the way for the modern madness with which we are now faced.

I guarantee you this: if the KKK were still a major political force, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Men would be men, and women would be women, and nobody would question this. (note, this is not an endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan).

Thanks Martin Luther King Jr. Thanks a lot.

 

[annabenedetti]

Gender indicates things like "man" or "woman."

What you are saying is that Bob is a man if and only if he identifies as a man.

I see no reason to accept this as true.



"Bob is a man if and only if manhood is assigned to him."

Why should I accept this as true?

Sex is biological.

Gender is the behavior and attitudes that a culture associates with an individual's biological sex.

Gender identity is an individual's sense of self, which may or may not match that individual's sex.

The terms sex and gender aren't interchangeable.

 

[annabenedetti]

Call me a racist

You're a racist.

 

[patrick jane]

Men and women, boys and girls, have different body parts. That's a good way to tell

 

[Jose Fly]

Got news for ya'.....biology isn't so cut and dry. Millions are born with all sorts of variation between sex chromosomes, genitalia, hormones, and brain patterns.

But then, conservatives have been out of touch on just about every science-related issue for the last 40 years or so. Why should this be any different?

 

[PureX]

Men and women, boys and girls, have different body parts. That's a good way to tell

It's a good way to tell what?

 

[HisServant]

Its going to be interesting to see what kind of convoluted thinking that the left will adopt to save womens sports and Title IX.

We already have people with male chromosomes competing in women's sports and shattering long standing records in women's sports.

At some point, in their zealousness to protect an extremely small percentage of the public, they are going to destroy all the accomplishments that have been made on behalf of women over the past 50 years.

The irony is going to be so thick.

 

[Right Divider]

Got news for ya'.....biology isn't so cut and dry. Millions are born with all sorts of variation between sex chromosomes, genitalia, hormones, and brain patterns.

But then, conservatives have been out of touch on just about every science-related issue for the last 40 years or so. Why should this be any different?

These are abnormalities. Do you think that there needs to be a new category for every permutation?

 

[PureX]

Its going to be interesting to see what kind of convoluted thinking that the left will adopt to save womens sports and Title IX.

We already have people with male chromosomes competing in women's sports and shattering long standing records in women's sports.

At some point, in their zealousness to protect an extremely small percentage of the public, they are going to destroy all the accomplishments that have been made on behalf of women over the past 50 years.

The irony is going to be so thick.

On the plus side, just imagine how self-righteous you're going to feel standing among all the chaos and destruction!

 

[HisServant]

On the plus side, just imagine how self-righteous you're going to feel standing among all the chaos and destruction!

I take no pleasure in it, nor do I feel self-righteous in any way shape or form.

They have framed the debate in such a way that anyone that questions what is going on is labeled intolerant and a bigot... they have made sure that any political opposition is basically suicide.

 

[Jose Fly]

These are abnormalities.

And there are millions of people born with them.

Do you think that there needs to be a new category for every permutation?

Category? I figure they can call themselves whatever they like and medical science can refer to their condition in whatever terms they prefer.