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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

My first venture into this topic away from MN

16 replies

OttersMayHaveShiftedInTransit · 03/02/2023 16:16

I have just been told that saying:

Male/female denotes sex in any creature

Man/woman denotes sex in adult humans

Girl/boy denotes sex in human children

"is blatantly and ignorantly false"

This was in response to a comment that male/female are sex words and man/woman are gender words. I need to walk away don't I?

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Itisbetter · 03/02/2023 16:18

Surely, “I disagree” is enough?

Hugsforyou · 03/02/2023 16:49

It sounds like it's not worth it - you will just give them airspace for their nonsense. I ignore a lot of attempts to drag me in with a person at work, I'm busy 👍

AmigoDogs · 03/02/2023 16:51

"is blatantly and ignorantly false"

My preferred responses range from "lol" to "citation, please"

ErrolTheDragon · 03/02/2023 17:00

This was in response to a comment that male/female are sex words and man/woman are gender words. I need to walk away don't I?

I think a rejoinder of something like 'don't be so foolish' and then walk away shaking your head more in sorrow than in anger might be about right.

OttersMayHaveShiftedInTransit · 03/02/2023 17:10

ErrolTheDragon · 03/02/2023 17:00

This was in response to a comment that male/female are sex words and man/woman are gender words. I need to walk away don't I?

I think a rejoinder of something like 'don't be so foolish' and then walk away shaking your head more in sorrow than in anger might be about right.

It is an online discussion so I can't head shake unfortunately. I know I need to not respond but I'm mindful of those who are new to the topic and don't want that sort of nonsense to be left unchallenged. So far for a male dominated space it has been remarkably GC but there are a few self declared 'cis-men' mansplaining why women sorry females have nothing to fear from the trans movement.

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Hugsforyou · 03/02/2023 17:42

Nothing would stop me saying the word 'woman' but personally I would determinedly do my own thing and let them talk their wollacks - unless it is personally offensive to you in which case I would calmly correct them. Why are they talking about trans stuff so much, is it relevant?

OttersMayHaveShiftedInTransit · 03/02/2023 17:49

It is an online discussion about the IOC's position on women's sport so whether women is a sex word or a gender word is pretty central to the debate but it's feeling at lot like the playing chess with a pigeon analogy at the moment.

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RoseslnTheHospital · 03/02/2023 17:52

If it's an online discussion with people you don't know then I wouldn't get too invested. I'd ask them to demonstrate how it was a false statement and see if they can, or if they resort to insults or other attacks. Then I'd leave it at that point if they can't respond with a reasoned argument.

Theeyeballsinthesky · 03/02/2023 17:53

This might help OP - sets things out pretty clearly

My first venture into this topic away from MN
ditalini · 03/02/2023 17:59

Some of them will be true believers and there's no point arguing with them as they are taking a faith based stance,

Some of them are misogynists and are taking a dickhead stance and there's no point arguing with them either.

Some of them will have taken in the propaganda, plus misleading information about DSDs (eg the implied idea that "literally any one of us could have different chromosomes", or "hormone levels literally make you change sex", or "science now recognises many different kinds of sex"). It might be worth arguing with them but it's exhausting.

Hugsforyou · 03/02/2023 18:15

I suppose any logical clarifications from you would be worth it if you have some other GC people there who will hear it. But I wouldn't engage in arguments - if you correct something to a logical scientific position and are harangued, you can't win it as it will be a haranguing match, but it can be witnessed.

OttersMayHaveShiftedInTransit · 03/02/2023 18:35

While I stepped away for a bit a couple of fantastic comments have been posted by others quoting 1884 and asking when the next book burn is 🤣

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Hugsforyou · 03/02/2023 19:53

1984?! There you go, humour and literacy in a doube whammy! They got you!

NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom · 03/02/2023 20:41

This following is a copy paste of two posts I made on the India Willoughby thread smushed together:

I know trans ideology says that ‘trans is an adjective not a prefix’ but if that were true it would surely have to be a magical adjective?

To illustrate:

Tall woman = an adult female human of greater than average height

Old woman = an adult female human who has lived for a long time.

Black woman = an adult female human with dark-coloured skin, especially one of sub-Saharan African ancestry

Trans woman = an adult MALE human who says he’s a female human (and who might have altered his appearance via hormonal and surgical methods).

One of these ‘adjectives’ is very much not like the others!

So…
IF we were to take the transgenderist position that ‘biological sex’ and ‘gender identity’ are two separate things, and those two different things can be mismatched inside one person (the current definition of being transgender, and the basis of the new ‘Gender Incongruence’ medical diagnosis)


and IF we were to agree with them that ‘male’ &’ female’ refer to sex and ‘woman’ & ‘man’ refer the completely separate concept of gender (because this is the only way in which the ‘tall/old/black women, trans is just another adjective!’ can stand up)

Then why on earth would we ever need use two ‘gender’ words in a row? If cisgender describes gender and transgender describes gender and woman describes gender and man describes gender…


Then that surely means that trans and cis are completely superfluous (because we already have enough words to cover sex & gender as two distinct concepts)? And thus we can happily discard trans/cis from our language…


Because if you accept the trans ideological argument that sex/gender are separate and a mismatch is a naturally occurring possibility and then follow it all the way to the logical conclusion it results in the following (drum roll!)…


Then instead of ‘ciswomen or ‘cisgender women’

we can just use ‘female women’!

instead of ‘transwomen’ or ‘transgender women’

we can just use ‘male women’!


instead of ‘cisman’ or ‘cisgender man’

we can just use ‘male men!


instead of ‘transman’ ‘transgender man’
we can just use ‘female men!


If sex and gender are truly different why can’t we these sex/gender language combos without being accused of transphobia?

And if sex and gender are completely separate then surely single sex spaces and services for female people are as irrelevant to ‘male women’ as they are to ‘male men’?

Hugsforyou · 03/02/2023 20:59

Perfect, (said the female woman) ❤️

OttersMayHaveShiftedInTransit · 03/02/2023 22:30

@NicolaSturgeonsSOGIbottom excellent - I have rehashed it slightly and posted it. Hopefully Mr 'man is gender word' will muster a coherent response but I suspect a large bowl of word salad will be incoming.

@Hugsforyou of course that was supposed to read 1984 - I failed in multi tasking so I guess I must have been in 'man' mode I was wearing overalls and laying flooring at the time so I only have myself to blame. A bit of lippy would have seen me able to split focus more effectively 💄

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