Royal College of Psychiatrists Statement

[dorade]

What hope is there when respected scientific organisations uncritically adopt phrases like "sex assigned at birth" and use "two spirit" people as evidence for the need to mutilated bodies to a facsimile of the other sex?

Report here

You didn't follow my post Angry. What is an adult?

I did follow it, and it's a ridiculous attempt at changing the subject and muddying the issue. As is most of what you post, really.

This new thing where you suggest that anyone who disagrees with you must be stupid isn't working out very well for you so far.

Perhaps I became an adult when my mother died. The concept of that certainly isn't alien to anyone. No-one's going to shout at me that "Adult is the day you turned 18! There is no internal sense of adult! Legal adulthood is a social construct!" - because that would be silly, and in complete denial of what we use the word to mean.

The law seems to work just fine with that.

The law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland defines an adult as anyone 18 or over. The law in Scotland defines an adult as anyone 16 or over.

We all know that socially we may have different senses of the word. But where a legal standard is needed, the age of an adult is defined in law. Even in areas where children are treated as having the same capacity as an adult (eg age of consent; criminal responsibility) UK law defines a person under the age of 18 (or 16 in Scotland) as a child, not an adult.

The law has these definitions because any law that does not define its terms is bad law. As we have covered already.

I've never said anyone is stupid Angry, or implied it. I'm sorry if that's what you're taking from my posts - it isn't there in the writing of them, I assure you.

I'm not trying to change the subject, or muddy anything, but I have twice now asked direct questions on this thread and rather than receiving answers for debate I've mostly had reams of reasons why those questions don't need answering. It's no surprise the debate isn't getting us very far is it.

You can't whinge about not getting an answer to "what is a woman?" if you won't proffer a response to "what is an adult?".

Oh, I've just realised, did you think I was accusing you of being stupid by saying you didn't follow my post? No, no, I was offering to rephrase if I hadn't been clear.

Yes Lang, thank you. That's exactly my point really, we have a specific definition in law for the purpose of law.

But that definition is not the sum total of our understanding of the word in other contexts.

Try telling a biologist that adulthood is exclusively the age at which the law recognises you as an adult.

Try telling someone who feels like an adult, who has been very aware of the events that led to their growing up and becoming an adult, that either of those terms are sufficient.

And that seems to work okay. We can and already do handle complex concepts and words that have a plethora of meanings in a variety of contexts.

You first, Rat! Be the change you seek! Give us a definition of "woman" that isn't circular and then maybe those of us who're already a bit tired of this routine will consider engaging with you more seriously.

rat but you would get people screaming "Adult is the day you turned 18!" If you went to try a vote when you were 16 because you self identified as an adult. That's why the clear verifiable definition is important. You verify your are an adult with your birth certificate, which confirms the biological fact of the day you were born. Age self-I'D would give you a certificate based on your feeling of when you should have been born.

Do you just want something you can write in the dictionary to replace "adult female human"? How about "a state of being typically associated with adult female humans". That means about as much as "adult female human" (given that adult means all sorts of different things in different locations or contexts) and is about as explanatory as any dictionary definition.

You okay with that?

Nah, because "typically associated with" is disingenuous nonsense. Which, again, I'm guessing I'm not the only person noticing a pattern there.

If you went to try a vote when you were 16 because you self identified as an adult.

No, absolutely flowers, the legal definition is totally the bottom line in scenarios where the context is a state/legal one.

But think about if your went to vote in a country where the legal age is different to here; you ARE an adult here, but you wouldn't be there. You are an adult only by the definition of the word that is RELEVANT to the context.

So there has to be a clear definition for each context - I absolutely agree - but I don't believe that there has to be "one true meaning" so to speak, because that just isn't true of loads of different things.

Just like"adult", the meaning can be different for different things, so long as you know which meaning applies at which time.

But most people flick between meanings quite naturally without any fuss.

I wonder, if I'd neglected to type a different word (because so obvious to most people that why would you?) if Rat would now be arguing about the waffly existential meaning of "day", or "rain", or anything else that can potentially be used to distract and shift the goalposts.

Rain, what does it really mean? Is hail a form of rain or something different, metaphysically speaking? Are we mis-weathering rain that's really cold but not actually frozen if we don't call it hail? And if so, can a man be a woman if he says so? Truly it is a mystery that will never be fully solved, and therefore we must let people with cocks undress in women's changing rooms or we're nasty bigots.

Angry I really can't be arsed. I give you an answer to a question - a question you're at pains to say can't be answered - and it meets your expressed criteria of "not circular" and is perfectly serviceable as a basic dictionary definition; so then you shift the goalposts and assert that it has to be **not "disingenuous nonsense" as well. Which is tough really because you've set yourself up as the sole arbiter of "disingenuous nonsense", and will undoubtedly claim it to be a completely objective thing on the basis that other people who would benefit from agreeing with you no doubt agree with it.

I mean if that isn't in the dictionary under disingenuous....

I hate to point out the obvious but age is a continuum (which goes in only one direction) and sex is a binary.
I'll say that twice because of all the guff that claims otherwise.

Sex is binary.

No analogy about age is going to work here.
There might be a grey area socially when a child is on the verge of adulthood, but legally there isn't. And no one struggles with whether to classify a 45 year old as possibly a child because they still have their parents.

If any confusion exists around sex then the objective should be to clarify, not further obfuscate.

There are 3.7 billion human females.
They are not male.
They are female.
They need a word and they have one.
If males want to be feminine they can invent themselves a new word.

Language exists to help us communicate clearly.

Rat thinks other people are shifting goalposts?

www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/psychological-projection-dealing-with-undesirable-emotions/

Any definition of "woman" that doesn't involve the word "female" is unscientific nonsense. But you already knew that many people here think that, thus rendering the wide-eyed "but I gave you a definition!" act disingenuous. And honestly rather funny.

Thanks for that, Barracker. I considered trying to point that out, but decided that I couldn't be bothered. If engaging with a person who seemed honestly confused I might have tried, but in this case...

Hmm maybe. ..I get the different contexts argument. I don't think we disagree. But age remains verifiable, so long as you have evidence of when you were born. The problem really then is the strong relationship between the binary biological characteristic of sex and the unverifiable feelings some people have of whether they are men or women. Age remains verifiable, regardless of whether you feel like an adult or not. As does sex, regardless of whether you feel like a man or a woman. So you base your legislation around the verifiable concepts, rather than those that are more nebulous. That's the whole issue here, isn't it?

Are you aware of the Canadian grandfather who "identifies" as a 6 year old girl, flowers? His "adopted parents" (kink thing) allow him to age play with their granddaughter.

angry ugh no. I don't think I can bear to click on it (not envy)

A vomiting smiley would come in handy sometimes!

barraker exactly. (Still haven't clicked on that video )

Angry. I used the word "female". HTH.

Barracker absolutely, I'm actually not making a comparison between age and sex though - not at all - because as you say they have some crucial differences.

What I'm saying is that we already have in law, in society and in our understanding things which do not have "one true meaning". So things whose meaning is guided by the context. I'm using "adult" as an example of that - something whose meaning is defined by the context.

flowers you said about self-ID'ing as an adult to vote. You're quite right, you couldn't self-id to vote because as we both know the context of voting is a legal one, thus so is the definition.

...but you can eat off the adults' menu in a restaurant by self-identifying as an adult, because the meaning of "adult" in that context doesn't require you being over 18, or sexually mature, or mature in any way - it simply requires you to have an adult appetite!

So if you want to make the parallel with gender (although it's obviously imperfect), sometimes it's entirely inappropriate to self-ID as a man - for example for male cancer screening. In other contexts where biology is unimportant it might be perfectly appropriate, so if i ask a shop assistant where I can find clothes, oh but I'm not a woman I'm a man, that gets the job done and everyone goes about their life just fine.

It is impossible to have feelings about being a man or a woman without a concept in your head of what a man or a woman is.

To identify with something you have to understand what it is. If you are identifying with a group of people those people have the right to correct your perception of what they are when you are mistaken about them.

If I observe that Chinese people eat a lot of rice, and I also eat rice therefore I strongly feel I am Chinese, I need to be corrected.
It becomes important to
A. Provide a clear definition of Chinese (which will exclude me)
B. Illustrate how the specific characteristic I am associating with Chinese is not definitive nor unique to that group.
C. Insist that clear delineation be reasserted to the group Chinese

What we DON'T do is waffle on about how there are lots of potential different definitions of Chinese, and rice eating is as valid as any other, as are feelings, and we don't dismantle the original definition of that group because it's exclusionary.

We need to grow up about this whole thing. We are tolerating toddler tantrums of I want it, gimme.

Female and male are about as distinct from each other as any two categories can be.
We will not dismantle reality to humour the ego of individuals who dislike it.

With a bit of waffle added to ensure that people who're not female could be squeezed into the definition. But hey, you tried.

Let me take your argument one step further ratrolypoly and see where it finishes

Context = biological sex or age matters: we must distinguish accurately between the sexes
Context = biological sex or age doesn't matter (your shopping / menu example)

We remove the false categorisation requirement!

We don't argue that to eat from the adult menu makes you an adult - we point out that it was unnecessary to categorise it thus
We don't argue that to buy men's clothes makes you a man - we point out it is unnecessary to categorise clothes thus.

In other words, we retain a very clear concept of adult and sex
What we challenge are all the false associations that should not be confused with sex.

In other words, keep the truth and challenge unhelpful societal mistakes