I get the notion that biological sex is one thing, but gender is another thing entirely. They’re still conflating the two.
And even in saying that, biological sex is not a binary because we know intersex individuals exist—people born with ambiguous sex organs, sex organs that don’t match chromosomal makeup, or even chromosomal makeups beyond the typical XX/XY. For all of the claims of “scientific reality,” the figures named in this article seem to do a very good job of cherry picking facts while ignoring the actual, less convenient reality of science.
“OK, but have you ever looked into intermediate or advanced biology?”
Dawkins is such a disappointing person. He has all the knowledge required to not only understand but also advocate for trans people but instead is defending the Anglican church, “light pedophelia”, and gender essentialism. He wrote a couple of books with some good parts but honestly, he is a sad old man and should be forgotten. Science moves forward one funeral at a time.
Long ago I saw him speak at a local gathering of humanists and even despite believing that atheism was a morally superior path and that religion was a harmful plague on humanity, still came away completely repulsed by him. He just seemed like an egotistical jerk with not very complex thoughts on society. I believe he was almost entirely focused on Islam rather than the more proximally harmful Christianity. It’s not at all surprising to me that he ended up where he is.
It is called Planck’s principle, so we are stealing from Max Planck.
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it ...
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.
— Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33, 97
Cool phrasing from him, lots of people have enjoyed it since, and honestly from my exposure to the field it is accurate. The push back against plate technonics was hard, as was the clinging to steady state cosmology. Oh, and miasma as a model of disease. We really are just slightly smart monkeys.
Calling sex a true binary is strange for a talented biologist, intersex people definitely exist.
Transgenderism is a bit different though. Personally I think gender is a repressive, outdated social norm, and I disagree with transgenderism precisely because it reinforces this obsolete notion. Anyone should feel free to dress, act, and identify however they please, including but not limited to any body modifications they wish. But “switching” your identity to align with another set of stereotypical expressions only reinforces those stereotypes.
I can’t even see the point in “fitting in”, because those who care about how you express yourself aren’t going to accept you as transgender anyway, and the people who are going to accept you aren’t going to care if your expression matches the stereotypes they’re used to.
I dunno if that’s his objection because paywall, but I can certainly understand opposition to transgenderism that isn’t actually intolerant of transgender people themselves.
I personally smell either some kompromat-style blackmailing situation (remember him defending trans people in the past, as well as having a much lighter stance on being “culturally christian”), or money in behind the scenes.
I can’t even see the point in “fitting in”, because those who care about how you express yourself aren’t going to accept you as transgender anyway, and the people who are going to accept you aren’t going to care if your expression matches the stereotypes they’re used to.
This is so important to understand, innerstand, overstand and outerstand.
I don’t think there is such a thing as “transgenderism”, as it is not an ideology. It is a human trait, such as this person is transgender, or that one is cisgender.
There is another issue I take with this approach.
You seem to think that transgender people (in the positional sense you employ above) acquire the societal customs surrounding the sexes (like skirts and make-up or ways of talking and walking) and equate it with “being that sex”.
This is not accurate though. There have been studies who show that trans people are no more stereotypical feminine or masculine than their cisgender peers. Cis people are all over the place with respect to gendered societal norms, and the same is true for trans people. (And of course non-binary trans people challenge the norms even further.)
To better understand what gender identity is, consider the horrific assignment of gender performed on intersex people. When infants have ambiguous sex organs, a doctor decides, often on his own visual inspection about the future ability of the organ to penetrate, whether to mold it into a penis or a vagina, and not even tells the parents, so they think they’ve got a cis boy or girl the whole time. Over the years it has turned out that these people feel uneasy and when seek answers they discover they should have been another gender all along. So it is something in their brain that tells them “I am not the correct gender”. The same thing happens to transgender people. This is what it makes a protected trait.
Also, the provided definition of “acquiring the societal custom of the opposite sex thus becoming the other sex” does not account for dysphoria, a feeling of unease to the primary reproductive organs or secondary sex features (like body hair, breasts, muscular structure and the like). And it is very shallow from a sociological perspective as to how deeply ingrained are these customs to the identities of cis and trans people alike.
The starting point here is usually to notice how asking about a baby’s gender is the first question asked, and everything is shaped from there (baby room coloring and selection of toys, the content of compliments, and conditioning their plans for the future).
People never complain about cis women “always” being such stereotypical dolls and cis men being such insufferable chuds. They only complain for specific trans people that are performing at the extremes, and the only reason is that people don’t see trans people’s gender are equally genuine.
This is an interesting article but it’s a little superficial. I wish it addressed where that internal gender originates from. It’s something I’ve been trying to understand. We know gender dysphoria is real and transgender is something that needs to be addressed through presentation (I hope I’m saying this right). But doesn’t that presentation ultimately conform to arbitrary societal norms on gender presentation?
Kinda? I dress feminine because it makes me feel attractive and it’s my style. But the dysphoria took hormones and bottom surgery to deal with. If I’m a woman in a suit, I don’t feel dysphoric at all unless people are misgendering me, meanwhile before transitioning I attempted crossdressing and I swear I never felt more dysphoric in my life than then. But also other people have different experiences.
Thank you for sharing your experience. This clears up quite a bit for me and I’m a bit surprised with myself it wasn’t obvious sooner. I think I’m just fascinated by societal norms about gender presentation and how it evolves over time. What you explained makes total sense to me.
Oh absolutely. And yeah I think a lot of people see us and get a little stuck on the gender presentation bit. Hell, I did as a teenager.
In fact, for a long time (and still in some places) in order to medically transition you had to do something called “real life experience”, which was living as your preferred gender for however long the therapist wanted. Now theoretically that could be a frustrating roadblock that has notmal issues, but basically be come out, change your name, use your pronouns, etc. However this also caused problems of essentially forcing overcompliance to gendered expectations. In college a friend of mine was told by a therapist that she wouldn’t get approval to start hormones if she didn’t start wearing makeup and dresses to her sessions. It used to be a joke in trans communities that we’d basically ham it up for doctors then go home and put on jeans and a t-shirt like everyone else wears.
It’s a bit outdated but the book Whipping Girl by Julia Serrano deals with quite a bit around transness and feminism.
It’s because we are social creatures who are not entirely in control of our schemas, or conceptualisations. We can’t just decide to have logical opinions and have it work instantly. There’s always a difficulty, and the difficulty scales with personal relevance and importance. When we aren’t in control, society decides how we define things like “man” and “woman”. And the internal sense demands that we be able to categorise ourselves as the preferred gender, to the standards of not just our ego but also our irrational id.
Ridiculous.
I get the notion that biological sex is one thing, but gender is another thing entirely. They’re still conflating the two.
And even in saying that, biological sex is not a binary because we know intersex individuals exist—people born with ambiguous sex organs, sex organs that don’t match chromosomal makeup, or even chromosomal makeups beyond the typical XX/XY. For all of the claims of “scientific reality,” the figures named in this article seem to do a very good job of cherry picking facts while ignoring the actual, less convenient reality of science.
“It’s basic biology, XX or XY, man or woman!”
“OK, but have you ever looked into intermediate or advanced biology?”
Dawkins is such a disappointing person. He has all the knowledge required to not only understand but also advocate for trans people but instead is defending the Anglican church, “light pedophelia”, and gender essentialism. He wrote a couple of books with some good parts but honestly, he is a sad old man and should be forgotten. Science moves forward one funeral at a time.
Basic biology he says? I’m just gonna leave this here
That is badass
I knew it sounded familiar. It even has a name and a wikipedia article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck’s_principle
Long ago I saw him speak at a local gathering of humanists and even despite believing that atheism was a morally superior path and that religion was a harmful plague on humanity, still came away completely repulsed by him. He just seemed like an egotistical jerk with not very complex thoughts on society. I believe he was almost entirely focused on Islam rather than the more proximally harmful Christianity. It’s not at all surprising to me that he ended up where he is.
“That can’t be true!”
Looks it up : “Dear spaghetti monster, what did I just read”.
Imma steal this, okay? Just letting you know now because this is absolute #facts.
It is called Planck’s principle, so we are stealing from Max Planck.
Cool phrasing from him, lots of people have enjoyed it since, and honestly from my exposure to the field it is accurate. The push back against plate technonics was hard, as was the clinging to steady state cosmology. Oh, and miasma as a model of disease. We really are just slightly smart monkeys.
Calling sex a true binary is strange for a talented biologist, intersex people definitely exist.
Transgenderism is a bit different though. Personally I think gender is a repressive, outdated social norm, and I disagree with transgenderism precisely because it reinforces this obsolete notion. Anyone should feel free to dress, act, and identify however they please, including but not limited to any body modifications they wish. But “switching” your identity to align with another set of stereotypical expressions only reinforces those stereotypes.
I can’t even see the point in “fitting in”, because those who care about how you express yourself aren’t going to accept you as transgender anyway, and the people who are going to accept you aren’t going to care if your expression matches the stereotypes they’re used to.
I dunno if that’s his objection because paywall, but I can certainly understand opposition to transgenderism that isn’t actually intolerant of transgender people themselves.
I personally smell either some kompromat-style blackmailing situation (remember him defending trans people in the past, as well as having a much lighter stance on being “culturally christian”), or money in behind the scenes.
This is so important to understand, innerstand, overstand and outerstand.
I don’t think there is such a thing as “transgenderism”, as it is not an ideology. It is a human trait, such as this person is transgender, or that one is cisgender.
There is another issue I take with this approach. You seem to think that transgender people (in the positional sense you employ above) acquire the societal customs surrounding the sexes (like skirts and make-up or ways of talking and walking) and equate it with “being that sex”.
This is not accurate though. There have been studies who show that trans people are no more stereotypical feminine or masculine than their cisgender peers. Cis people are all over the place with respect to gendered societal norms, and the same is true for trans people. (And of course non-binary trans people challenge the norms even further.)
To better understand what gender identity is, consider the horrific assignment of gender performed on intersex people. When infants have ambiguous sex organs, a doctor decides, often on his own visual inspection about the future ability of the organ to penetrate, whether to mold it into a penis or a vagina, and not even tells the parents, so they think they’ve got a cis boy or girl the whole time. Over the years it has turned out that these people feel uneasy and when seek answers they discover they should have been another gender all along. So it is something in their brain that tells them “I am not the correct gender”. The same thing happens to transgender people. This is what it makes a protected trait.
Also, the provided definition of “acquiring the societal custom of the opposite sex thus becoming the other sex” does not account for dysphoria, a feeling of unease to the primary reproductive organs or secondary sex features (like body hair, breasts, muscular structure and the like). And it is very shallow from a sociological perspective as to how deeply ingrained are these customs to the identities of cis and trans people alike.
The starting point here is usually to notice how asking about a baby’s gender is the first question asked, and everything is shaped from there (baby room coloring and selection of toys, the content of compliments, and conditioning their plans for the future).
People never complain about cis women “always” being such stereotypical dolls and cis men being such insufferable chuds. They only complain for specific trans people that are performing at the extremes, and the only reason is that people don’t see trans people’s gender are equally genuine.
And that’s what gender critical means.
This article may have some direct relevance to you: https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/so-you-found-out-youre-agender-because-you-don-t-understand-trans-people-886fdee6f178
Thanks for this
This is an interesting article but it’s a little superficial. I wish it addressed where that internal gender originates from. It’s something I’ve been trying to understand. We know gender dysphoria is real and transgender is something that needs to be addressed through presentation (I hope I’m saying this right). But doesn’t that presentation ultimately conform to arbitrary societal norms on gender presentation?
Kinda? I dress feminine because it makes me feel attractive and it’s my style. But the dysphoria took hormones and bottom surgery to deal with. If I’m a woman in a suit, I don’t feel dysphoric at all unless people are misgendering me, meanwhile before transitioning I attempted crossdressing and I swear I never felt more dysphoric in my life than then. But also other people have different experiences.
Thank you for sharing your experience. This clears up quite a bit for me and I’m a bit surprised with myself it wasn’t obvious sooner. I think I’m just fascinated by societal norms about gender presentation and how it evolves over time. What you explained makes total sense to me.
Thank you!
Oh absolutely. And yeah I think a lot of people see us and get a little stuck on the gender presentation bit. Hell, I did as a teenager.
In fact, for a long time (and still in some places) in order to medically transition you had to do something called “real life experience”, which was living as your preferred gender for however long the therapist wanted. Now theoretically that could be a frustrating roadblock that has notmal issues, but basically be come out, change your name, use your pronouns, etc. However this also caused problems of essentially forcing overcompliance to gendered expectations. In college a friend of mine was told by a therapist that she wouldn’t get approval to start hormones if she didn’t start wearing makeup and dresses to her sessions. It used to be a joke in trans communities that we’d basically ham it up for doctors then go home and put on jeans and a t-shirt like everyone else wears.
It’s a bit outdated but the book Whipping Girl by Julia Serrano deals with quite a bit around transness and feminism.
It’s because we are social creatures who are not entirely in control of our schemas, or conceptualisations. We can’t just decide to have logical opinions and have it work instantly. There’s always a difficulty, and the difficulty scales with personal relevance and importance. When we aren’t in control, society decides how we define things like “man” and “woman”. And the internal sense demands that we be able to categorise ourselves as the preferred gender, to the standards of not just our ego but also our irrational id.