“Sex is a result of colonialism”

[SmugglersHaunt]

Just saw an old friend I’ve not seen in a long time. We were talking about this and that then got on to trans issues. She said that binary sex is a concept that comes from colonial times and racial oppression etc. I actually couldn’t argue as it was so nuts. Apparently I’m akin to a QAnon person for believing in biological sex. She basically said I’ve been radicalised.

Apparently men won’t ‘dress up as women’ to enter women’s spaces, as ‘they can more easily ‘dress up as a policeman’ to abuse women. Everything I said was shouted down. Cases like Karen White etc are apparently not true.

I’m (probably stupidly) shocked. I have read a lot of this shite over the years, but to hear it from someone who I‘ve known for a long time was bewildering. I honestly can’t understand how anyone goes along with this. Not sure why I’m posting this but just want to vent I guess.

Sounds bloody familiar

It's binary gender which is the social construct. And it's one which 'gender critical feminists' explicitly object to. It's what we were objecting to, right there in the term we use, long before trans issues came to the fore.

The alternative genders in other cultures are, afaik, typically sexed themselves. Hijra are males (rarely, intersex). Balkan sworn virgins are female.

I think trying to argue reasonably with the batshit is a mistake. The OP's friend is, probably, not racist but what she is disseminating is. Don't entertain it at all. Anyone who comes out with this crap, treat it like you would any other racist shit. Call it out, every single time. Don't reason with it. Call it out. It's racist, end off. It's racist, how dare you. It's racist, I used to think better of you. It's racist, get out of your echo chamber and educate yourself.

Thanks all - some really helpful things in there. The more I think about what she said, the more mad it sounds. Other gems were that there are more than two sexes, you can change sex etc etc. There are actually fewer trans people than there were years ago (???) When I argued back she just said ‘that’s not trueI’, you’ve been reading lies’ etc.

Watch what happens if you prove she is unequivocally wrong on something, or say something she doesn't have an argument to. She'll get very angry, I predict. And declare you are awful and flounce off. Because it's not a rational belief, it's a faith based one.

It's a view that appeals to two tropes that are popular with progressives at the moment: that sex is not binary and that there are indigenous "ways of knowing" that are equal (or even superior) to the "Western" scientific approach to knowledge.

I agree cake.
Best response.

Your friend has gone down the social justice warrior/ BLM/ gender identity wormhole. The ancient Greeks knew there were two sexes, male and female. The bible had god creating male and female separately. The Jewish and Muslim faiths clearly separate people by sex. Sadly your old friend has gone and I think it unlikely you will ever have them back. Once people fall prey to this kind of magical thinking they rarely return to rationalism.

What are all the different gametes called of these different sexes? There was a joke diagram of eggerms and sperggs once, but I can’t find it. Where/where are they produced? Do two sperggs produce a human? Where does the spergg x spergg gestate? And (obviously because formula has only been around for a short while historically) who breastfeeds these offspring so that they can grow up and reproduce to create further generations themselves?

Obviously this does not involve DSD, which is scientifically proven, and nothing to do with the above. The only charitable solution to her stupidity is she has got completely confused.

OP you need to send her some questions and come back here with the answers. Fascinating she thinks she knows the scientific-denying ‘answers’.

Yet another inconsistency is when they say there's more than two sexes, sex is a spectrum, etc. So if that were true, that would mean sex is a real thing and not a social construct, wouldn't it? Make your minds up.

The whole thing is like trying to have an argument with a narcissist who keeps moving the goalposts and contradicting what they just said.

Hijra are not a third gender, they are men who decide or are forced to become male to female prostitutes.

it's true. it's a little known fact that Charles Darwin's observations about natural selection etc drew exclusively on his observations from those of the Galapagos Islands that'd historically been used as stopping off points by European conquistadors. much richer, more diverse, more nuanced things were going on in the other islands, but all that data got hushed up because it didn't fit the narrow colonial mindset.

That’s what Aristotle thought. Plato thought something else again (two sexes) and other philosophers were arguing about women’s roles as well.

Arguing that the whole of Greek society thought X because some Greek philosophers (even if one of them was Aristotle) thought X is utterly batshit. It’s like arguing that the Greeks all lived in clay wine jars because Diogenes did.

I'm going to apologise, because I was parodying the kind of idiot argument I've heard on this issue, and didn't signpost that enough.

Is Christianity a western religion? Showing my ignorance here, but it comes from the same region as Islam and Judaism, are people from the Middle East white colonialists for the purposes of these arguments?

(Disclaimer, I know pretty much nothing about these religions, but knowing stuff doesn't seem to be a requirement.)

I'd call Islam and Judaism western religions, as Eastern religions are things like Buddhism, Hinduism and Shinto and what have you. Others may disagree.

It’s okay, I did get that it was a parody after a re-read. I just thought it was worth pointing out how batshit the idiot argument is…

I’d say they were Eastern religions which successfully colonised the West. (Also a religion MA). Judaism is only a ‘Western’ religion in the sense that it’s more familiar to us than Buddhism/Shinto et al, because there’s a fairly large Jewish population in Western countries.

I think it's more that it was primarily Western branches of Christianity which were heavily involved in colonisation.There have also of course been Islamic colonisers. It's probably a general feature of proselytising religions.

IcakedefargeIam · Yesterday 22:58

Yeah, presumably it's why it's called the 'missionary position'. Until the Europeans showed up, native people had been randomly plugging bits of bodies together. It's a wonder their populations hadn't died out. Let's ignore that many cultures had different customs and rituals specific to each sex.

It's arrogant and racist
👏

It certainly is.

“It's probably a general feature of proselytising religions.”

Not really. More a general feature of human beings. Colonialism and Empires date back to ancient times; having your country colonised by the Babylonians was no fun at all. Part of this weird reverse arrogance that the modern disciplines have is that only white Europeans did ‘proper’ colonialism.

The three major proselytising religions are Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. (Buddhism tends to say it’s not a proselytising religion, but they do seem to be very, very good at explaining why they’re the right path to follow.)

Not really. More a general feature of human beings. Colonialism and Empires date back to ancient times; having your country colonised by the Babylonians was no fun at all. Part of this weird reverse arrogance that the modern disciplines have is that only white Europeans did ‘proper’ colonialism.

True enough, empires by definition do imperialism! However, it may be that the combination of colonisation with a religion which believes it is The One True way is particularly likely to tend to suppress rather than accommodate indigenous religions and culture.

While I agree this is useful for an immediate reaction, "omg. I can't believe you said that! Don't you see how racist that comes off?"

I think it's relatively easy to argue why something is racist. I'd give her a few points and say, "maybe you didn't mean it but that statement presumes ignorance by indigenous people about sexual reproduction and it assumes that they didn't have their own cultural stereotypes and structures based on sex differences. I suggests they are less intellectually capable than colonizers."

"It suggests" not "I suggest". Shit. Bad typo. Bad.

Even Neanderthal man managed to figure out how to breed! Gee Whizz! :-/