Lurker > The_Apologist

AnsestralRecall posted...

It won't work.

And you're confident enough in this claim to stake the entire cause of trans rights on it?

AnsestralRecall posted...

I will not be reduced to a fucking lapdog for the status quo just to appease a cisheteronormative society that wants us dead.

Even if that would work?

I'm trying to understand your priorities. Suppose enshrining trans rights required you to do something you thought was beneath you, like entertain an opposing perspective in polite dialogue. And suppose that this would actually succeed, and you'll have defeated transphobia if you do this. Would you do it?

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You should feel embarrassed for enabling a mindset that undermines a just cause.

AnsestralRecall posted...

No one has ever won their rights and legal protections through debate and talking nice.

They've won their rights by persuading the general public.

KitKats posted...

There is no trans debate,

In saying this, you're carrying water for transphobia. You're ceding ground for the transphobes to stand on by forfeiting the argument. Let's hope trans rights carry the day in spite of the cowardice of your approach to the issue.

AnsestralRecall posted...

There is an entire political ideology that wants to deny us our existence.

What you mean is that they want to deny that trans people really are the gender they identify as.

AnsestralRecall posted...

It is important to seize it and get rid of those who stand in the way.

'Might makes right' is a losing strategy. But if you want to go full nihilist, I can't stop you.

AnsestralRecall posted...

Debating bigots has never done anything of value.

It's changed hearts and minds. It's won support for anti-bigotry causes.

AnsestralRecall posted...

Defiance and forcing them to shut the fuck up is tried and true.

Citation needed.

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Since no one denies their existence. But there are those who deny that trans people really are the gender they identify as, and it's important for pro-trans people to 1) engage with the debate and 2) win the debate.

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What's even stupider is the sentiment that there's no point in having a better case to make than the opposing side.

AnsestralRecall posted...

you'd better be able to define what it is to be biologically female and start by leaving your 5th grade biology education at the door

Yes, the biological conception of gender needs there to be a definition of 'female'. And there is, isn't there? I'd link the Wikipedia article, but there's nudity.

AnsestralRecall posted...

not willing to have a good faith conversation though

That's my preference, actually. But I'm still willing to argue with dishonest people as long as they stay on topic and don't make it personal.

People are always welcome to block me if they feel that they need to. But I'm willing (and would prefer) to have a civil conversation with anyone.

CyricZ posted...

Wow what an Internet argument expert. Those twenty years really paid dividends.

I'd say so.

dj1200 posted...

geez, who cares that much about someone being trans? does it really affect her that much?

Yes. Society's conception of gender affects everyone.

She's wrong to think that it affects her negatively, though.

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The culture war over gender is far from over. In some ways, it's more 'on' now than it's ever been before.

I can't imagine looking at the state of gender politics today and thinking that the TERF perspective is irrelevant. What qualifies you to say that?

CyricZ posted...

Way to prop up "I've been on GameFAQs for twenty years" as a qualification.

(Not like I can talk. >.>)

GameFAQs is where it started for me, but most of my politics/ideology/debate experience has been elsewhere.

A lot of it was on Facebook, but I'm not about that life anymore. Arguing only with strangers on the internet is an improvement, but I suppose I should probably quit that too.

Gwynevere posted...

There's no definition you can ascribe to women that excludes trans women without also excluding some cis women.

What about some sort of biological definition that amounts to saying that women are biologically female adult humans?

Gwynevere posted...

For your classification to be accurate, "having a majority of traits" isn't gonna cut it.

Why not? That's a possible form that a definition could take. But regardless, it seems that the biological essentialist (meaning, a person who wants to define gender in terms of biological sex) could simply defer to the biologists and import whatever definition of 'female' they use in the context of biological sex.

DrizztLink posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/0/1/AABUaRAAE-Ct.jpg

Do you think it's good to be able to defend your position against people trying to refute it? Let's say that it's a position on an important topic, and that it's the correct position. I'd say it's pretty good to be able to defend it.

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I've spent my entire adult life in spaces where people are arguing over ideology, and I've seen firsthand, many times over, how counterproductive it is when people make bad arguments in favor of a cause. Weak rhetoric in support of a cause is just as damaging as strong rhetoric in opposition to it. This is true for all controversial topics, in my experience.

GranAures posted...

Imagine telling somebody that they need to be more persuasive than the people who would actively deny her identity.

The thing is that I care more about getting results than virtue signalling. A lot of people don't, and so they're willing to engage in superficial rhetoric that strokes their self-righteousness while doing nothing to actually effect positive change--or even undermining positive change. I know you don't want to hear this, but yes, persuasive argumentation is more effective than condemning the bad guys for being bad.

To be clear, I'm playing Trans People's Advocate, not Devil's Advocate. The cause of trans rights is better served when people make good arguments in favor of it rather than bad ones. When people make bad arguments in favor of trans rights, they actively undermine the cause.

KitKats posted...

Guess Im not trying hard enough to get those basic human rights, huh.

I think you could do more, at least in this setting, to make your position more persuasive than other possible positions. For example, instead of just calling the opposing stance 'biological essentialism' and assuming that this discredits it, you need to explain why biological essentialism is the incorrect approach.

I can't speak for what you do outside of GameFAQs, though, so maybe you're doing good work there.

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I try.

I have my doubts about free will and moral responsibility across the board, for people in general. We should still try to prevent people from doing bad things, but I don't know if it ultimately makes any sense to ascribe moral blame (or moral credit, in cases where people do good things).

This is a mainstream (though not majority) position among philosophers. See here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/#SkepRelaTopi

GranAures posted...

Man, I guess homeslice is still trying to peddle definitions that would explicitly deny trans women.

I'm trying to get people to realize that they need to put more effort in if they want to support trans rights.

GranAures posted...

I actually don't wonder

About anything. We know.

KitKats posted...

You can't say women must have a uterus to be a woman, or have XX chromosomes, or ovaries, such that it works without excluding cis women too.

There's probably a way to define 'female' in terms of having a majority of a short list of biological traits. I don't see any point in trying to deny this possibility.

KitKats posted...

It's prescriptivist, rather than being descriptive, wherein such features are still recognized but not used as a requirement.

So a 'prescriptive' definition is one that gives requirements? Then all definitions (of anything whatsoever) are prescriptive, including yours. Or, if that's not what you meant, you'll have to explain what you think 'prescriptive' and 'descriptive' mean, since you seem to be using the terms idiosyncratically.

KitKats posted...

Anchoring who does and does not qualify as a woman under such definitions, that are being promoted for the explicit purpose of excluding women who are trans, is biological essentialism.

Yes, that's the point. If you want to make your case, you'll need to explain why biological essentialism is bad.

KitKats posted...

it's important for women to be recognized as more than our bodily functions and parts

Yes, and the biological definition allows women to be so recognized, as long as it doesn't say "and this is all women are good for"--which it doesn't. Analogy: biologically speaking, we're vertebrates, but this doesn't imply that we're nothing more than spines.

KitKats posted...

Im not sure why youre carrying water for transphobia here

I'm not. But some people were making the bizarre claim that there's no coherent definition of 'woman' that excludes trans women, and that's just false. In fact, it's arguably transphobic to make that claim, because doing so makes the pro-trans argument very easy to refute.

KitKats posted...

when they use definitions in such a manner they are explicitly arguing for prescriptivism

I hope you understand that your position is also prescriptive. You, like them, think there's a way we should define 'woman' (and 'man', etc). And there's nothing wrong with having a prescriptive position, by the way; everyone should have such positions.

KitKats posted...

which inherently boils it down and reduces us to a body part or function

Again, there's no part of the biological definition that says "and this is all a woman is good for". Do you think it's just inherently degrading to talk about human biology, or something?

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Even if you don't have the legal right to an abortion in some context, you might still have the moral right. The definiton I gave is talking about morality, not legality.

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The definition doesn't require women to be fertile; it just requires them to have female anatomy.

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No. All that matters, as far as the biological definition is concerned, is anatomy. You might ask about intersex people, though; the definition might exclude them in some cases, but it doesn't imply that they're 'less than' a woman or a man.

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Okay. I also accept trans identities. But this doesn't prevent me from acknowledging that there are coherent conceptions of gender that deny trans identities.

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Okay. So you don't object to the simplicity of the definition. (I thought that was your issue, since you used terms like 'reduced to' and 'boiled down'.) You just think that the definition is tainted by its history.

So what about a definition like "a woman is a person endowed with human rights, inalienable moral dignity, and full sovereignty over herself, and who also has female sexual/reproductive equipment"? That seems to be what feminists intend when they base their definition in biology.

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If there were an additional clause saying "...and individual women are nothing more than these traits", then you'd be reduced. But there's no such clause.

Besides, if we go with the self-identification position, and define a woman as a person who identifies as a woman, doesn't this 'reduce' women in the same way, by your reasoning? Aren't you being 'boiled down' in that case too?

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Take a different example, then. I'm lazy; I acknowledge this about myself. If someone were to describe me as a lazy person, I'd recognize the unfortunate truth of what they're saying, and I would understand that they're just pointing out a characteristic I have without reducing me to it. (If they said that I'm just a lazy person--a lazy person with no further characteristics worth remarking--then I'd think they were reducing me to my laziness.)

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Do you understand that when someone gives a sexual/reproductive definition of 'woman', they aren't saying that the worth of a woman is exhausted by her sexual/reproductive potential?

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I don't see how. For example, I can describe myself as a teacher, and this can be a true statement about me with important implications for my identity and life experiences--but none of this reduces me to my job or diminishes me in any way.

In other words, there's an obvious difference between "You are X" and "You are only X".

KitKats posted...

Trans women experience socialization as trans female growing up

What do you mean? To be clear, 'to be socialized as' is synonymous with 'to be regarded by others as'.

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Lots of people are always regarded as a man/woman. But really, it doesn't need to be 'always'; there just needs to be a general consensus. By analogy, even if there are some English speakers who don't know what a particular English word means, it still has that meaning as long as the community of speakers generally recognizes it as having that meaning. (I use this analogy because language is a classic example of a social construct.)

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I don't agree with this definition, to be clear. But I'm willing to grant that people are generally treated in gendered ways, and that this gendered treatment underwrites a coherent distinction between 'the typical experience of being a man' and 'the typical experience of being a woman'.

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I don't know. One option is to find some fundamental experience that's universal to all AFAB people (but not AMAB people). Another is to bite the bullet and acknowledge that there are a few outliers who are AFAB but don't count as real women.

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I don't see how that differs from what I said.

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If someone is always regarded by others as a man/woman, then by definition that person is a man/woman, according to the social construct view. So (contrary to the testimony of lots of trans people) there can't be someone whose true gender differs from their socially perceived gender.

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It could be something like 'having the typical socialization and formative experiences of an AFAB person'. This is a classic way of defining 'woman' in feminist philosophy. It's a second-wave, social constructionist sort of approach, and that's why it has TERFy implications when applied to trans people.

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The social constructionist thesis: being a man/woman just means being perceived by society as a man/woman. Do you understand so far?

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There are some perspectives on race and sex that shouldn't be on the table as viable options; I agree.

But this doesn't mean that there's no room at all for different positions on race and sex in civic discourse. The fact of the matter is that there's a variety of intellectually respectable philosophical theories regarding the nature of race and sex (and gender, and lots of other things), as evidenced by the debate over whether--or to what extent--gender is a social construct. (An analogous debate exists for race as well.)

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I think you're interpreting it backwards, though. The point is supposed to be that both cases are political, not that neither is.

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Do you grant that "How should society work?" is a political question? And that proposed answers express political positions? I'm trying to understand what you mean by the adjective 'political'.

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If gender is a social construct, then a person's gender is whatever gender is attributed to them by society. Being a man/woman means nothing more or less than being viewed by others as a man/woman.

So if a trans woman passes flawlessly, I guess the social constructionist view would imply that she's a woman. But the social constructionist view straightforwardly denies the possibility of someone having a 'true' underlying gender that differs from how others perceive the person.

Whether trans women are women depends on what gender is. Some conceptions of gender (eg, those holding that gender has a biological basis independent of culture) imply that trans women are (or can be, depending on their biology) women, whereas other conceptions of gender (eg, the second-wave feminist/TERF position that gender is entirely a social construct) imply that trans women aren't women.

So the question is whether we should consider "What is gender?" a political question or not. It seems to have direct political implications, and people's engagement with it often seems politically motivated, but I dunno. It's complicated.

HylianFox posted...

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/20/1204935485/youre-not-imagining-it-nudity-creep-in-streaming-tv-reveals-more-of-its-stars

Maybe it's 'cuz I'm gay, but after decades and decades of naked women being splattered everywhere, it's nice to finally see some more DICKS on the screen.

I've always said the issue isn't that we need to objectify women less, it's that we need to objectify men MORE. >_>

Once men have been objectified to the extent that women have been, I'll be happy.

I ask myself how someone can have such a comically bad take, and I end up thinking that they just aren't familiar with female anatomy.

The graphic nudity--as in, genital nudity--in mainstream movies and TV has always been 99.99% male. If the goal is parity, we need to start dumping buckets of vulvas onto the screen.

thronedfire2 posted...

We dominated earth by sheer luck

I don't think so. It's kind of the expected result, given our intelligence, isn't it?

thronedfire2 posted...

were fucking it up completely on purpose now

That remains to be seen. If we manage to make civilization sustainable, then that's an enormous success, not a fuckup.

And if civilization doesn't end up working out, it's probably best if we take the rest of the earth down with us.

ScazarMeltex posted...

Look at what we've done to this planet. Look at the amount of species of plants and animals we've driven to extinction. We don't deserve to drag ourselves out into the wider universe until we get our shit together.

What would count as 'getting our shit together'? Why can't our domination of earth count as 'getting our shit together'?

Anything other than soles is a waste of time.

Still-frozen freezer pizza: Consecrated Snowfield

When the pizza goes into the oven: Volcano Manor

Unattended pizza on a picnic table swarming with ants: Haligtree

When the pizza is old and stale: Crumbling Farum Azula

The last honest pizza: Roundtable Hold

Billyionaire posted...

so what's the opposite bussy?

That's why it's a stupid term. Both sexes have it.

Zikten posted...

if so, I have a question

Why is the universe so big, if we are the only ones here? Why did God make so much useless stuff? To me, if God exists, then either universe would be a lot smaller, or aliens would exist. I just dont see the point in such a massive universe if its all just for 1 stupid species on a miniscule planet

Why couldn't it all be for us and our descendants? There's plenty of time to (figure out FTL and then) colonize the galaxies.

There probably are aliens, though.

UnfairRepresent posted...

I don't think objective morality exists.

We barely even understand ourselves and our brains.

Is the second statement relevant to the first?

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Sure. That might be the case, but we can't afford to take it for granted. We should advance a deliberate cultural critique, instead of (and I'm not saying that anyone here is doing this) just assuming that the cultural reforms we want will follow naturally from other political or economic reforms.

DnDer posted...

You solve for capitalism, you solve for about 90% of the other problems in the developed world.

I think this is approximately true (not sure if the percentage is as high as 90), but it's worth pointing out that there are some serious men's issues which are cultural rather than economic, and thus they wouldn't be solved by 'solving capitalism'--although 'solving capitalism' is of course worthwhile.

Same goes for women's issues, by the way.

BB_mofo posted...

His mistake was that maths is a tool used by science to model observations. If the observation is incomplete, the model is incomplete.

Mathematics is largely independent of empirical observation (and of science, for that matter), and it's still the quintessential example of a priori knowledge.

The capacity to deduce mathematical truths a priori, however, doesn't automatically entail a corresponding capacity to deduce moral truths a priori. Mathematical realism doesn't necessarily lead to moral realism.

reincarnator07 posted...

If it can't be demonstrated, it's no more than a hypothesis.

Pretty much everything is a hypothesis in that sense. But in any case, the point is that an objective moral standard might exist even if it isn't demonstrated.

reincarnator07 posted...

That doesn't mean it's definitely untrue, but it would be unwise to just assume it's the case.

Exactly. The absence of demonstration tells us nothing either way, so you shouldn't use it as an argument.

reincarnator07 posted...

Y'know why they've changed? It's because humanity was able to demonstrate that existing information was incorrect.

And we can tell a similar story about humanity discovering moral truths over time through trial and error.