If you're a man, whatever you feel is what it feels like to be a man

[literalviolence]

No? Everything else is a logical fallacy. So there's no such thing as a man 'feeling like a woman' - they are in fact feeling like a man. There's no need for all men to feel the same.

"... a person is more than their body ..."

That seems clearly true. It's wholly compatible with the fact that people are essentially embodied, though, isn't it? What do you think?

(You need to watch out for the Straw Man here. It's quite common: "No woman has a penis." ... "Aargh! Reducing people to their genitals!" ... Erh, no. --Why? Think about it.)

As for gender identity not being born in a vacuum. Very likely so. It doesn't follow the notion has any sense or coherence, though, does it?

My friend Dan's proof of the squaring of the circle wasn't born in a vacuum. And it draws inspiration from pre-existing ideas that persist on many sides of lots of conversations. Nevertheless we know it to be fallacious. There is no such thing as "squaring the circle" (in the sense Dan intends); nor could there be.

Likewise, there is no such thing as "gender identity" (in the sense certain trans apologists intend); nor could there be.

Do you think differently? What do you think "gender identity" means, if so?

Not everyone shares you concept of 'fit'. That's an old fashioned view. Many feminists think there is no such things as a fit - that's just stereotypes.

It helps if you read and process what I said correctly. I made no reference to my own views or concepts, and specifically asked people to exclude their own opinion and focus instead on our culture. You have no idea what I think on the subject, personally, because I haven't said anything about my own view. I'm not sure what it is myself 😂I'm too busy asking questions and exploring ideas

When it comes to understanding the world around us, we have to try as hard we can to ignore our own views and see the world as it actually is. There's always a gap between the values a society and individuals profess to believe and what their behaviour reveals, including ourselves. I'm frequently surprised how many people find this to be so hard

Feminism exists precisely because its a reaction against the culture within which it exists, and in any case it doesn't represent a single viewpoint anyways. Feminist views represent views that vary from "blank slate" or "gender is a construct" all the way up to what you consider to be stereotypes. There isn't such a thing as "feminists think x". Recently, I've taken an interest in epigenetics, and that has had me asking myself some interesting questions on the whole nature/nurture thing, because it has me wondering to what extent it can explain things that might otherwise appear full under nature

Your body is you. You are not you without your body. You do not exist as a person without your body. You do not exist outside of your body. If your body changes you are still the same person, just in a body that has changed. If your character/tastes/moral compass change you are still the same person, just less or more likeable/less or more reliable etc.

If your body was an entirely different body you would be an entirely different person.

When it comes to understanding the world around us, we have to try as hard we can to ignore our own views and see the world as it actually is.

Impossible.

OK, maybe not impossible, just very difficult. And often very important to recognise people's interpretation and understanding of reality.

I'm struggling to understand your point. How is 'blank slate' different to 'gender is a constuct' and 'stereotypes'? I don't believe it's possible to see rhe world as ot actually is a d of course there's a massive body of thought around that specific question. What we can do is try and step back from our own assumptions. I think those people who are more able to do that are less likely to get sucked in by the extremist gender ideology views tbh because to believe a man is a woman is to accept a logical fallacy and to be persuaded by dominant power structures and is absolutely not stepping stepping outside of society's boxes.

The point is only that sex is rarely defined only in relation to biology, and I think this is where a lot of hotly contested ideas spring from. Nothing overly ouragous

Sex is defined almost always only on relation to biology. What makes you think otherwise?

How else would you define sex, other than biologically?

Are you referring to sex as in sexual intercourse, with all its variants and social and emotional ramifications?

Yes.

The difference between genderism and gender criticism is that genderism wants to reify those cultural constructs into something real and material that take the place of sex, solidifying them and thereby reducing individuality, while gender criticism wants to challenge them, reducing the degree to which they limit us. Genderism wants to make sure everyone can pick the right box, gender criticism asks why we have the boxes at all.

Honestly I wouldn't mind a social movement to promote what we currently consider to be just different personality types into self-identity groups with real social weight, accepted differences in need and potentially, legal protections. In many ways that's what's happening with neurodiversity right now. I don't necessarily think it's the right way to organise society wholesale but I think the conversation it would engender would likely bring many insights and improvements in how we support and relate to each other. (And I think the way TRAs have forced gender conversation into the only acceptible outcome being the incredibly narrow TWAW/TMAM no debate is an absolute tragedy exactly because it stopped that process of learning, exploring and evolving solutions from happening.)

I just don't think we should condone linking persoanality to sex (because whether gender is labelled cis or trans, it's still assuming that link to sex), which continues to exist and impact our lives especially if we are women regardless of how we personally identify, and I don't think we should be appropriating sex-based language, rights and supports into a system of gender identity.

😂

As we all did...boundaries eh?

Experience.

You look at anything marketed primarily at a woman or a man, why is that? Because their definition of a woman goes beyond biology.

Go further, exploring stories, films and other things and you find people have a range of different beliefs.

Onwards into comedy, where you look at characterisations of men and women, asking yourself "why" things are funny and you'll find at the root is beliefs about men and women.

Then there's insults which reference a different sex to that of the person they're targeted at.

Hence what I said about peoples definitions involving more than just biology, and what follows that is people trying to come up with explanations to make sense of that when their model doesn't work. It's more than just people who believe in gender identity doing this. If we lived in a world where everyone only thought of sex as biology, I couldn't imagine the idea of gender identity emerging

One of Elaine Miller's talks touches on dementia sufferers waking up in unfamiliar bodies after sex change ops.

They don't forget their sexuality but they forget they felt like the opposite biological sex, thought provoking.

Thats what we overlay on sex and not about a definition. No one thinks people who arent stereotypical aren't the sex they are. Think beyond humans. When we sex cows, is it beyond biology? or bees? any animal? do we look the character trait of a kitten before deciding whether to castrate it or do we look for balls.

Epigenetics is fascinating but you'd need a rearrangement of your genome to change sex, not just a bit of methylation surely?

Then you might consider mosaicism. Which cells could you effectively change?

@quantumbutterfly where is that Elaine miller talk? I tried googling but not finding it

I didn't say anything about epigenetics as a means by which someone might change sex 🤔It was in the context of people having definitions of sex going beyond biology, Its a rabbit hole I've only just considered so I don't have anything particular to say about it right now. I've only learnt enough to begin wondering

I have seen so many I can't tell you without googling all..you could listen to any of her talks and be better informed about the physical issues of transition.

Have a Google, it was a guest speaker slot rather than a fringe show.

Thank you for sharing this so eloquently- this is the crux of what this whole fucking mess is about.

@spookehtooth
FVF women's festival 2022
Elaine Miller

We all need to look after our verbs, never mind our pronouns.

Being female, and a woman (or male and a man for that matter) is something that you are, not something that you can have, or 'experience' as someone not of that class.

It is state of being, and that's the end of it.

That's not sex. That's gender.

Not in the sense of gender identity, but in the older sense of socially imposed roles, stereotypes and expectations. The stereotypes and limitations that gender critical people are critical of, and that gender identitarians wish to impose rigidly on everyone.

Marketing? Marketing does not dictate the meaning of words.

Woman is the word that specifies an adult human female, just as girl is the word that specifies a juvenile human female.

An ad marketed at women and therefore designed around stereotypes perceived as feminine does not redefine the meaning of the word woman. If the stereotypes in that ad appeal to a girl, it does not make her an adult; if they appeal to a man, it does not make him a woman.

This is so interesting. I can't imagine feeling as if I'm a man in any other way other than due to the body I'd be in. All the confidence at work, caution around women, security to walk in the dark/alone in the park etc, all of it stems from being inside a male body. Being another man like the men at work, the men on building sites, the men in the park etc. Or being conscious of how my presence could make women feel in certain situations etc.
I can't even imagine feeling like a man cos there's no such thing!! You either are or are not a man, and your feelings are unique to yourself!
Such a weird concept how on earth has it been normalised to this state now?!
It'll be a case study for future generations in the same way mass social buy-in to Nazism is a psychological phenomenon to be studied and learned from.

I started writing a post imagining a world where we classified sex by preferred advertising target market. It was so absurd it wasn't even funny, so I deleted it.

And that is the world transactivism appears to occupy. 'I like [insert load of stereotype stuff that I personally have no truck with] therefore I am a woman'.

So you're telling me that as a woman I have to like that stuff? Or you're telling me I'm not a woman as I don't like that stuff? And then they generally drop the first 'therefore' and revert to 'I feel I am therefore I am woman'. Which is actually the same thing, because that feeling is based on something, and that something isn't growing up in a female body because they didn't.