Trans Bills

[Fenring]

if we're talking about the meaning of words, then yeah, we have to go back and look at how those words were used in various contexts, including feudal ones. So long as we want to know "what it means" we need that. You want to talk about what "man" and "woman" might reasonably mean, but without looking at that history, which doesn't work. Now I don't have any problem with making the case that "yeah, we know it *always* meant this, and this the meaning was self-evident, but we want to change the meaning now." Well ok, I would understand that position. Many would push back, but it would be clear. The argument that the words 'already do' mean the new thing is the only thing I'm personally pushing back against. The old meaning was very clear, not really controversial IMO, but in order to look like it was everyone else who was confused about the meaning the narrative is that this is just what the meaning is. Well that's not going to match reality in the eyes of anyone other than true believers. I can see the desire to avoid saying "we propose to change the meaning". It's because probably the general answer would be "no." So as the saying goes, if you may not like the answer then avoid asking. Strategically it seems to be a fairly effective maneuver, although it does generate more blowback than the straightforward approach would do.

[Aris Katsaris]

if we're talking about the meaning of words, then yeah, we have to go back and look at how those words were used in various contexts, including feudal ones. So long as we want to know "what it means" we need that. You want to talk about what "man" and "woman" might reasonably mean, but without looking at that history, which doesn't work. Now I don't have any problem with making the case that "yeah, we know it *always* meant this, and this the meaning was self-evident, but we want to change the meaning now." Well ok, I would understand that position. Many would push back, but it would be clear. The argument that the words 'already do' mean the new thing is the only thing I'm personally pushing back against. The old meaning was very clear, not really controversial IMO, but in order to look like it was everyone else who was confused about the meaning the narrative is that this is just what the meaning is. Well that's not going to match reality in the eyes of anyone other than true believers. I can see the desire to avoid saying "we propose to change the meaning". It's because probably the general answer would be "no." So as the saying goes, if you may not like the answer then avoid asking. Strategically it seems to be a fairly effective maneuver, although it does generate more blowback than the straightforward approach would do.

More babble.

And in all that babble, both in this and the previous post, you've still not told us whether you'd refuse to call adoptive parents "parents" or not, whether parenthood is "as much of a "social construct" as anything else that is observably testable. It is literally just naming a thing we see as we see it. It's a social construct only insofar as it requires human minds to do the observing, but that's about it." (as you said about gender)

As far as I can tell, (since we're assigning motives to each other) you just don't want to say either of the following simple statements:
(a) "Yes, I acknowledge that adoptive parents are also a type of parents, even though biologically they're not"
 or
(b) "No, adoptive 'parents' aren't parents, this goes against both science and the observed facts of nature, we shouldn't call them such. Parenthood isn't a social construct/role, it's a biological reality."

And so because you don't want to say either (a) or (b), you just babble a lot to muddle up the issue.

[Fenring]

Aris, the reason you're having a problem with my answers is because I don't think you are considering how frickin complicated language is, and why certain things may or may not be called certain things. Language is a reflection of thoughts...kind of. And kind of not. Part of its content exists outside our thoughts, maybe in the noosphere or whatever. This is not a trivial topic. If someone approaches you, says the child is his son, and asks me "so am I his parent", the only thing I could answer is "what kind of information are you looking for in my answer?" If they wanted me to acknowledge that they love their son, I'd say sure (if that's true). If they want me to understand that there's a blood relationship, I'd say ok, I guess if you're the father then that's what you are. If they want me to understand that they brought up the child, I'd say ok, that's the term we'll use to mean that. But in all these cases something different is meant by me agreeing. You want me to just agree as if the content of my agreement is immaterial. What you want is a blanket statement saying "ok, whatever you want me to mean, you can pretend I meant, so long as I agree to your term usage." Well if I care about whether actual true information is being passed, then I'd want to know what the meaning is of what I'm agreeing to. Just agreeing to use a term without regard to its meaning sounds dangerous to me.

Now this may or may not be parallel to the gender pronoun issue. In the case of parent/child terms, there is a definite meaning baked in to the use of the term that is mutually understandable; whether it's "this is my legal heir", or "we love him as if he's our own". Whatever the meaning is, it should be fairly clear in that sense what is meant by using the same word (parent) in a way that can potentially mean various things. With gender pronouns I don't think that's the case the trans community is making. I think the case being made is that it's a subjective evaluation that in fact does not require me to understand the why of it, or for there to be a common meaning to the term. It's not supposed to be communicative, just a matter of respect. There is no social or structural interrelationship in play defining the context of the term use; it's a purely personal matter, divorced from its relationship to others. So in that respect alone I don't think these two uses of terms map onto each other.

I hope what wasn't too much "babble" for you. Did you know that it takes exponentially more space to unpack a claim than it takes to make one? But please go ahead and call an attempt to make sense of the situation "babble." Sounds to me like trying to shame someone into backing off.

[NobleHunter]

Language is complicated, but sex and gender can easily be boiled down to there are men and there are women and that's that. /s

[yossarian22c]

I am sympathetic to the biological definition of male/female as defined by genitalia. I personally feel that the increasing prevalence of trans is one due to trans people coming out.

Another purely speculative reason is that the increase is a result of environmental toxins that affect the hormone levels in the body. Some plastics that are prevalent in our environment have similar properties to estrogen receptors. This could be playing a role in the physical development of youth. I'm not sure if there is anyway to treat such toxins or ameliorate the impact they have on people. Also I have no idea if that would affect a trans persons sense of self to any large degree.

All that said I think most trans-persons would be happier if there was a strong androgynous culture that would allow them to dress and act without having to fit publicly into the male/female categories. Some would likely still like to fully transition but others may be happier with their natural bodies but identifying as "they." They is a popular pronoun choice among trans individuals because they realize they aren't fully at home in either category.

But all that aside, banning trans youth, who already have a hard time fitting in, from high school and youth sports is cruel. Preventing them from seeking hormone treatments when it is what they, their parents, and their doctor agree is best is just asking for more suicides.

When compensation becomes a factor in sports rules would need to be implemented. But the NCAA and professional associates should be able to make their own rules along those lines. And the only sport where the prize money is significant enough to tempt someone into something so extreme is tennis. Men and women largely earn the same prize money and men ranked between 100-300 in the world who are struggling to earn a living in the men's game could be in the top tier of the women's game. I really can't see another sport where anyone would even be tempted to transition just for a competitive advantage.

[Fenring]

All that said I think most trans-persons would be happier if there was a strong androgynous culture that would allow them to dress and act without having to fit publicly into the male/female categories.

This is an interesting hypothesis that I'm not 100% sure would be borne out empirically. We'd have to see, I guess. No doubt the trans movement is not really one movement per se, but a conglomeration of various inner experience that fall under an umbrella term. I think there are definitely many trans people out there adamant that they are specifically one gender, and that to them this is critically important point. In fact I read a few lengthy threads the other day on the fact that certain people who identify as trans find it offensive when they/them is used as a default prior to knowing the exact preferred gender. The argument goes something like, don't use they/them as a cop-out to evade asking what the correct pronoun is, even as an introductory default.

Perhaps you are right that for others they/them is preferable, if the inner experience isn't so much a particularly gendered situation so much as not liking the connotations thrust on you by society by gender implications. So for them it would be more of disassembling the social constructs and not making assumptions, more than the pronouns saying anything distinct in and of themselves. But again, many trans people I've heard from definitely want the pronouns to announce something specific, and often distinctly gendered.

[yossarian22c]

All that said I think most trans-persons would be happier if there was a strong androgynous culture that would allow them to dress and act without having to fit publicly into the male/female categories.

This is an interesting hypothesis that I'm not 100% sure would be borne out empirically. We'd have to see, I guess. No doubt the trans movement is not really one movement per se, but a conglomeration of various inner experience that fall under an umbrella term. I think there are definitely many trans people out there adamant that they are specifically one gender, and that to them this is critically important point.
...

You are correct, most was probably too strong a term here. But I do think many would apply more aptly. But its largely a moot point because creating a large enough androgynous culture within society seems to be highly unlikely. Unless that becomes the dominant form of how trans people choose to publicly display. I think that many feel forced into the either/or of male/female and as such they become adamant that they are identified by the gender they feel most at comfortable with. If there was a strong androgynous culture that may prevent many from feeling they needed to fully transition or convert, but just be themselves presenting in a non-gendered way.

I'm basing this off a couple interviews I've heard of trans-people who when they first underwent treatment were very excited to pass as their chosen gender but as time went on they realized they preferred they as a pronoun and didn't want to be mistaken as a cis-gendered person either.

[TheDrake]

I have a friend immersed in a particular environment where when introducing themselves, they include a preferred pronoun. He's extremely accommodating and accepting, but the time spent on this or the procedure irks him. They/them irks me, because it is a plural and it makes me cringe grammatically speaking, it introduces confusion into the equation. I liked the suggestion of ze. There have been a lot of attempts and suggestions. You can sort them all here

I find it much easier to just avoid a pronoun altogether. Aaron, whose birthname was Abby, is someone I know. His preferred pronoun is he. I sometimes use that, but I get into confusing territory because other people we know call him by "she" which this person was to them for years. I just stopped substituting. Maybe the cleanest answer would be to eliminate pronoun use, just speculating.

I was with Aaron the other day, and Aaron wanted to go fishing. We'd normally say he in the second case. But do we have to?

Making mistakes is understandable, and our mutual friends see a frown and correct themselves and everything is fine. What I don't understand is a belligerent refusal to use a preferred pronoun even when you know the preference.

I agree that sporting events are complicated on a variety of levels. I'm not sure how to sort that out. Do you want the transgender boy to be in the girls locker room? Is that better? I don't accept a solution that says, "well, you just can't play sports anymore". Plus, what if the transgender boy continues to play girls sports while on male hormones? That's not particularly fair either, is it?

Would the hangup on man/woman be any way alleviated by creating new names of sman, swoman? I don't think that would make trans people any more acceptable to the ones objecting, because I think they just don't want those people to exist and complicate their lives by existing.

[Aris Katsaris]

I have a friend immersed in a particular environment where when introducing themselves, they include a preferred pronoun. He's extremely accommodating and accepting, but the time spent on this or the procedure irks him. They/them irks me, because it is a plural and it makes me cringe grammatically speaking, it introduces confusion into the equation. I liked the suggestion of ze. There have been a lot of attempts and suggestions. You can sort them all here

I find it much easier to just avoid a pronoun altogether. Aaron, whose birthname was Abby, is someone I know. His preferred pronoun is he. I sometimes use that, but I get into confusing territory because other people we know call him by "she" which this person was to them for years. I just stopped substituting. Maybe the cleanest answer would be to eliminate pronoun use, just speculating.

I was with Aaron the other day, and Aaron wanted to go fishing. We'd normally say he in the second case. But do we have to?

Now, *that's* a linguistic issue. Amusingly enough, Greek would have the opposite problem than English. When we omit names, the sentence is usually not gendered in Greek (so "She wanted to go fishing" and "He wanted to go fishing" would be written the exact same indistinguishable way "Ήθελε να ψαρέψει"). But if I do use a name, it must always also have a gendered article accompanying it (So "Kennedy wanted to go fishing" would be written differently if Kennedy was a male or female name: "Ο Κένεντι ήθελε να ψαρέψει" "Η Κένεντι ήθελε να ψαρέψει")

When some of us were fansubbing an episode of Sherlock that came up, since there was no good way of writing a sentence like "I met with Harry", while fooling the audience that Harry was male which the episode wanted us to (instead of short for Harriet, Watson's sister, which is revealed later).

Anyway, a singular gender-neutral pronoun for people is needed anyway, regardless of trans-rights issues, because we need be able to speak about an individual of indeterminate gender and constantly going "he or she", "his or hers" is annoying and frustrating. The singular they has a centuries-long history in English, it's not a new contraption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

[TheDrake]

Thanks for the Greek lesson, maybe not so much the English lesson.

Yes, in certain contexts, they is used to refer to an indeterminate unknown person, just like "one". One often sees that particular usage of "they" and derivatives.

Someone was in my house, and they took my phonograph.

More rare but in use is, "I went to lunch with a friend, and they paid the bill".

But never, "I went to lunch with my brother, and they got the lobster."

It would be marked down on a college board exam, or at least it would have been until recently.

[yossarian22c]

It would be marked down on a college board exam, or at least it would have been until recently.

Language evolves. They to mean one or more of indeterminate sex would be a modest change. Kind of like marriage going from hetero pair bonding to simply mean a pair bonded couple of any genders. Losing the plural only interpretation of they can introduce some ambiguity in language but pronouns are supposed to be clear in what they refer to by usage anyway. So we really shouldn't lose any meaning or cause any confusion by switching its usage.