Another uncritical gender identity article in the journal Science

[TheBiologyStupid]

Science, the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been captured for a while, sadly. Here's it's latest uncritical example of gender identity nonsense: www.science.org/content/article/how-astrophysics-helped-me-embrace-my-nonbinary-gender-identity-in-all-its-complexity

I despair for science (more broadly) sometimes...

Excuse my language but what a pile of crap...

Id say that in practice men/women and male/female are used interchangeably to refer to either sex or gender depending on context.

To some extent, that's being polite. For decades now, if a man has wanted to "live as a woman" - ie go around in normal societies pretending to be a woman - most people will go along with that. It didn't seem to do much harm.

Men and women should, on the whole, be treated the same, so it shouldn't matter most of the time.

But when it matters - when male/female are placed into rules because it matters - it is sex that matters.

I have yet to conceive of a single place it would make sense for male/female or man/woman to refer to anything other than sex in any sort of rule or law.

I can see reasons to discriminate based on sex - for safety, fairness, privacy, etc - and hence see male/female occur in laws to permit those exceptions to a general "no sex discrimination" rule.

I can never see any reason to permit gender discrimination. There should be no exceptions permitting gender discrimination, so there should be no need to ever refer to specific genders in rules.

No, we aren’t all NB. You don’t have to be 100% of all a gender’s roles and expectations and stereotypes to be that gender.

But we are non binary, because we don't have a "gender".

So the only claimed distinction is in this inner "gender identity". I believe non-binaries don't have a male or female gender identity. That's fine. They have to accept that WE DON'T EITHER. The problem isn't us not believing in THEIR soul, it's them claiming things about US.

This.

@NecessaryScene
I agree that gendered expectations are a thing, but you are insisting that we internalise them. You're insisting that the men and women here have "gender identities" which you've assigned to them by sex. And then you're saying that non-binary people don't have those gender identities.

No, haven’t said any of that. I’ve not stated much less insisted on any of that. I’ve simply been defining terms.

Note that a "gender identity" - this inner soul - is clearly separate from an "external gender expectation", which is where you started.

What? You said you live in a “ gender free world” you did not state you lived in a “gender identity free world”. Perhaps you should be less vague when attempting to make a point as the term gender includes all of gender from identity to roles to stereotypes to expectations and so on.

Are you aware that that statement would have you cancelled/abused/doxxed/threatened/seen as a legitimate target for physical attack, by a great number of gender ideology activists
Theres extremists in everything, gender theory is no exception with extremists both for and against it. All extremism is bad, it’s the middle road that matters.

And there was a never a gender binary, because gender is a multifarious spectrum that’s different in different places and changes over time. For example you might think that gender involves men not wearing dresses or make-up, but that hasn’t always been true even if limit it to a narrow UK-only view, as there have been times when men wore make-up as the norm, there are exceptions for kilts which are associated with battle and manliness, we know men wear make-up for stage performances and TV, and so on.

Anything you can think of to claim is a masculine-only or feminine-only thing, there will be exceptions, and people who’ve gone against it, not just now but throughout history. if you consider the whole world and all cultures, then there’s hardly anything that is gendered only masculine or feminine. Unsurprisingly because gender is societal, used to control people and varies according the the society.

As I said, I’ve been breaking gender norms my whole life. I’ve opted out of the “gender binary” that you perceive. I did that naturally, like many people do, because it’s who I am. So am I “NB”? Because if I’m not, but in real life am actually just as non-binary as an “NB”-identified person, then how is it a thing? It’s clearly just a made-up label.

and I totally agree we should respect that some people have a “Gender identity” as part of their inner feelings about themselves, just as some people are religious. What’s then not OK is for others to be forced to accept those identities in place of actual sex, and that’s what’s happening.

Who is this “we” you are referring to?

Please note I was responding to @OldCrone who stated
So we're all NB then? How many people do you think are 100% walking stereotypes of masculinity or femininity?

The obvious answer to that is No we are not all NB.

If you are NB, my response is still correct.

Who is this “we” you are referring to?

Absolutely everyone who has ever lived. HTH.

Yes there was a gender binary. The fact that the binary was different in different times and places, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a binary there and then. It most certainly was and it was socially enforced.

As I said, I’ve been breaking gender norms my whole life. ok, so you are gender nonconforming.

So am I “NB”? Because if I’m not, but in real life am actually just as non-binary as an “NB”-identified person, then how is it a thing? It’s clearly just a made-up label.. Whether or not you are also NB is for you to decide. Of course it’s a made-up label most words are made up labels. Doesn’t make it any less real.

What’s then not OK is for others to be forced to accept those identities in place of actual sex, and that’s what’s happening. Most things go to an extreme before they are reined in. Doesnt make all of it crap to be fought against or disrespected. In other words, choose your battles. Coming down on and making fun of NB people for breaking down gender stereotypes isn’t part of that issue at all. It’s just acting on guilt by association.

Theres extremists in everything, gender theory is no exception with extremists both for and against it. All extremism is bad, it’s the middle road that matters.

no, that’s a massive cop-out. What you call an extremist view is in fact being adopted wholesale by the NHS, the police, many governments, many workplaces, whole sections of life and everyday experience. As I said, people are losing their jobs. Women are self-excluding from gyms, swimming, shops etc because they can no longer relax in the knowledge they’ll get a female-only experience. Girls toilets are being invaded by boys at school, resulting in girls not using them at all and not drinking so they don’t have to. Women are being raped in prison and on female hospital wards. Children are having their health destroyed.

all this is because “gender identity” is being taken seriously and is being seen as a replacement for actual sex, and more important than actual sex.

ok, so when you said
But we are non binary, because we don't have a "gender". you were referring to “everyone who has ever lived”

I think many would disagree with you on everyone being the same gender identity. Millions of people do not identify as NB. So you’d have to do a bit of evangelism to convince them otherwise.

By the way, the NB people who don’t have a gender are called agender.

Coming down on and making fun of NB people for breaking down gender stereotypes

no one did that. Yes we made fun of this person, not because they resist gender stereotypes, that’s a good thing. But because they think they’re special for doing it, and because they claim that being “NB” gives them a special, extra open-mindednesses and ability to question everything - as if other people can’t do that - while at the same time not stopping for one moment to question gender ideology, suggesting they don’t “question everything” at all.

read the thread. Where is anyone criticising or mocking them for breaking with gender stereotypes?

By the way, the NB people who don’t have a gender are called agender.

Yes, as you say, that sub-label is under the "non binary" umbrella. I don't believe anyone has a "gender" in the way people mean, so everyone is non binary. I am not interested in convincing people of anything. Unless you can define what things the two binary "genders" consist of, of course.

How is it cop-out if it’s being implemented by society? That’s just life. Many extremist views have been implemented in society many times over- often resulting in atrocities. One only needs to look at the Taliban in Afghanistan to see an example of even worse extremism than we have here. Would you like all our female judges to be hunted down and shot in the head execution style? Would you like 9yr old girls being married off to 50yr old men? and so on.

I could list over a dozen historical examples of extremism being implemented in societies and the death and chaos caused, but I think you get my point and can think of at least a few cases.

How is it cop-out if it’s being implemented by society? That’s just life. Many extremist views have been implemented in society many times over- often resulting in atrocities. One only needs to look at the Taliban in Afghanistan to see an example of even worse extremism than we have here. Would you like all our female judges to be hunted down and shot in the head execution style? Would you like 9yr old girls being married off to 50yr old men? and so on.

I could list over a dozen historical examples of extremism being implemented in societies and the death and chaos caused, but I think you get my point and can think of at least a few cases.

What is the relevance of any of this to whether we believe in "genders", either "binary" or "non binary"?

These are examples of oppression of women due to their sex. Do you think these women and girls declaring that they weren't "binary" would save them?

So your response re extremism suggest you don’t think gender ideology taking over western society, and people being harmed by it, is a good thing. Is that right?

Alright, no I didn’t know your particular motivation for making fun of this person for being NB. Posters still did it. And it’s not necessary.

Ask @BlossomsOnATree she brought it up,

Unless you can define what things the two binary "genders" consist of, of course.

Unlikely. There's a continuous motte-and-bailey going on here between

"I’ve simply been defining terms."

and

"Whether or not you are also NB is for you to decide. Of course it’s a made-up label most words are made up labels. Doesn’t make it any less real."

Words have concrete meanings when it suits, and are self-applied labels when it suits. Can flip several times in a page of the thread.

And sometimes you can pretend they're both simultaneously - eg this assumption that male people (identified by concrete sex definition) have male gender identity (they have self-labelled).

Well @Discovereads I doubt Blossom has any clue what you were trying to say, because I certainly don't, so maybe it's for you to explain the relevance of female sex based oppression to people who believe in "non binary" gender identity. Aside from pointing out what a luxury belief it is.

Yes!

Not quite. The extremist bits of gender theory are bad. Just like the extremists bits of feminist theory, critical race theory, neomarxist theory etc are also bad and do cause harm.

Humans tend to take everything to a bad extreme, even the good things. So, I’m saying gender theory is mostly good. It’s the extremist bits that need to be lopped off.

So, I’m saying gender theory is mostly good.

In what sense?

It’s not just my motivation, it’s the tone of the thread, because we’re generally feminists. No one is saying, “silly girl, of course she’s not Non-binary, she should stop worrying her little head about physics and get back in the kitchen”.

but you said we’re criticising her for breaking gender stereotypes- why did you say that when there’s no evidence for that at all? It seems to me like it’s still more of this effort to suggest that anyone who doesn’t get “gender identity” is bound by gender stereotypes, so that trans and NB people can claim to be the only ones who are special enough to step outside them.

I find that article not just silly and self-contradictory (if you can’t even interrogate a relatively recent, illogical, evidence-free ideology, you definitely are not questioning everything) - but bloody rude and insulting to the many great scientists who really have questioned everything and managed to do so without navel-gazing themselves about their “gender identity” and declaring themselves more open-minded than other people.