Gender Documentation and Definition

Anything to do with gender and the status of women and men.

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Vendetta
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Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by Vendetta »

As of recent, there has been some debate as to whether the gender of babies should be required on official documents. Many of those who specifically identify as "outside the gender binary" feel that gender is something that develops over time with exposure, and cannot be determined at birth. Therefore, it shouldn't be on documents.
However, these are the same people who disagree with the "societal definition of gender" by associating gender with one's interests, such as the color pink versus blue, or the choice to wear dresses versus pants. They say that this is personal preference and has nothing to do with gender.
These two arguments are rather contradictory.

So the question is, which is it? Is gender determined at birth and ideas such as "boys like trucks" are just societal norms that have been put onto males and females in terms of interests?
Or does an interest in specific things help to determine that gender that any individual identifies with? Can we determine the gender identity of someone by the way they behave, or the things they gravitate towards?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by Immanuel Can »

This used to be comedy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp9MPLEAqA

Nowadays, it's postmodern, liberal orthodoxy.

How things do come around!
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Arising_uk
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by Arising_uk »

But they don't put gender on our UK birth certificates they put the sex?
Skip
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by Skip »

They used to put whichever of the two recognized sexes looked obvious on the newborn.
When it was not obvious, they asked the parents for their preference, did whatever plastic surgery was required to make the external baby conform to the parents' wishes and put that on the documentation - thus causing the owner of the artificial genitalia and false birth certificate a great deal of anguish through life.

Now, there are more sophisticated ways to identify (and determine) a baby's sex at birth, including a very early blood test that doesn't even need amniotic fluid. If the sex is uncertain, they usually put neither F nor M, and wait to see what the kid wants to be.

Gender non-conformity is just taking that wait-and-see attitude a little further, giving each person a little more leeway in self-determination.
After all, who else is much affected by it?
tbieter
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by tbieter »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2017 2:53 am This used to be comedy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp9MPLEAqA

Nowadays, it's postmodern, liberal orthodoxy.

How things do come around!
Thanks. Brilliant observation.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by Immanuel Can »

tbieter wrote: Mon Jul 10, 2017 9:48 pm Thanks. Brilliant observation.
Cheers. :D The brilliance is classic Python. It's almost like they saw this coming...
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Arising_uk
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by Arising_uk »

Immanuel Can wrote:Cheers. :D The brilliance is classic Python. It's almost like they saw this coming...
:lol: Do you think IC can see the irony in him quoting from the Life of Brian?
Skip
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by Skip »

Arising_uk wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2017 2:07 pm
Immanuel Can wrote:Cheers. :D The brilliance is classic Python. It's almost like they saw this coming...
:lol: Do you think IC can see the irony in him quoting from the Life of Brian?
More to the point, do you think he understands any of the allusions to sex and gender roles? Or who Reg is?
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GreatandWiseTrixie
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by GreatandWiseTrixie »

Hmm why not do science.

Put 1000 babies in a scientifically controlled environment without gender roles. Then see what happens.

THEN MAKE A TOPIC ABOUT IT.

NOT MAKE A TOPIC DISCUSSING NON-EXISTENT CONCLUSIONS BEFORE THE EXPERIMENT IS ACTUALLY MADE.

Scientific method is...
You make an experiment.
You draw conclusions from the experiment.

Scientific method is NOT...
You look at traditions and social norms.
You draw conclusions from traditions and social norms.
xman
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by xman »

GreatandWiseTrixie wrote: Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:03 am Hmm why not do science.

Put 1000 babies in a scientifically controlled environment without gender roles. Then see what happens.

THEN MAKE A TOPIC ABOUT IT.

NOT MAKE A TOPIC DISCUSSING NON-EXISTENT CONCLUSIONS BEFORE THE EXPERIMENT IS ACTUALLY MADE.

Scientific method is...
You make an experiment.
You draw conclusions from the experiment.

Scientific method is NOT...
You look at traditions and social norms.
You draw conclusions from traditions and social norms.
I would be interested to read how you ground your argument formally. I suggest you would run into trouble if you tried. Your reasoning seems to presume an identity or at least an analogy between the way we do science and the way we do morality--between what Kant might describe as the Law of Nature and the Universal Law (Groundwork, Ch. 1 and, well, the whole book). To do so in a meaningful way would demand that you show us how this identity or analogy can be derived. I reject the idea that you can do so, because you would be confusing Ends with Means. In the sciences like physics, chemistry and the like, your End is knowledge and the objects you are dealing with (particles, galaxies, gravity waves) are not rational beings and thus can be treated as Means to your end--no one gets hurt. This falls under Kant's Kingdom of Nature. In the social sciences, however, we are dealing with real, live human beings--rational beings--who are inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ends. Human beings cannot be treated only as Means; they must be treated in the final analysis as Ends. This distinction is a basic one built into reality; it is not derived from reasoning but is a presumption of reasoning. To mix the two is a contradiction and cannot stand. It is, in the kind of situation in front of us here, also extremely cruel. I mention 3 examples that point to this distinction. I just mention the first two because you probably already know of them, and you can google them if you don't: the Milgram experiment, which was bad enough, and the Bowlby experiment which was a real horror show. Both are now illegal. The third is probably closest to your suggestion, and I will describe it. A European king in, I believe, the 1st millenium CE, was told by his advisors that the natural language of mankind was the language spoken in heaven--Hebrew. So, to test this out, he got a large group of neonates, raised them in isolation with deaf mute nurses to care for them and NOT able to influence the language the kids would speak naturally, and waited to see what happened. As you might suspect, the kids ended up not speaking any language, they passed the threshold of native language acquisition and so had No native language, and were basically fucked up. That is what comes of treating rational beings as Means (to discovering a contingent truth) rather than as the Ends they truly were. Is this what you would actually will for the kids you want to experiment on: "Put 1000 babies in a scientifically controlled environment without gender roles. Then see what happens."??
EchoesOfTheHorizon
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by EchoesOfTheHorizon »

Wait, is the OP saying "these people" won't recognize a person who sees the sexes as binary (outside of obvious birth defects of having both kinds, or no genitalia) also liking culturally associated symbols of sex?

That's bullshit. I had a lavender dress shit for years, took a lot of flak for it, and threatened to kick the butt of a guy at Papa John's if he kept mocking it. The shirt was my color, and I looked damn good in it, fuck the world if it can't accept me in lavender.

At birth, Penis = Male, Vag = Female, not accepting some crazy liberal cultural construct that we pretend all of sudden what is obvious isn't obvious, that's obvious biology. Tough if you can't deal with it. Like trying to pass a iguana off as a cat, I'm not playing along with such silliness. But nobody is getting up in my face, denying me the joys of a manly lavender shirt, that so lovingly highlights the blush of my skin. These hypocritical cross dressers can kiss my ass if that is the case, as I won't stop. I'll dress as I want, and will be as straight as I want, they can't stop me. Society was wrong for labeling lavender as a girl color, works for manly straight men too.
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Arising_uk
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by Arising_uk »

I think the word is vagina.
EchoesOfTheHorizon
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by EchoesOfTheHorizon »

Vag is accepted too. Good name for a girl, as it says to the daughter, "Your parents were assholes."
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Arising_uk
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by Arising_uk »

No it's not as its commonly used as a word of disgust rather than a biological term and especially not when you are using the word "penis" at the same time.
EchoesOfTheHorizon
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Re: Gender Documentation and Definition

Post by EchoesOfTheHorizon »

No, maybe in England it is, but British English is oftentimes ass backwards to American English. I have a friend from Birmingham who told me not to pee once, and I couldn't figure out why I suddenly wasn't allowed to. Turns out you guys have a bizarre phrase called Holding The Piss which has nothing at all to do with not peeing.

You can with absolute certainty call a Vagina a Vag in the US, and to be honest, I don't think it even has occurred to the left yet to be upset by the word Vag yet. You can't shorten Penis to Pen cause we already have a word spelled Pen. A woman asking her boyfriend for some Pen might have a ballpoint pen tossed to her.

We also shorten other words too, like Vietnam is Nam. It isn't a word of derision, and Vietnamese people don't stand around crying every time someone shortens it. People outside of San Francisco call the city Frisco (nobody in the city does this) and while it annoys, it by no means comes off as demeaning.

The U.K. isn't the center of the English language anymore, and you don't get to dictate what is what in common useage anymore. US has a much, much larger population, and heck, India has far more English speakers. At this point, even if the U.K. tried to pull a fast one and legislate the grammar, like the French and other European countries do, nobody would play along outside of the U.K., as Parliament and the Queen has so very little pull over the proper usage of the English language.

I will continue to call a Vagina a Vag, and won't take flak for it, feel ashamed, or feel I'm remotely doing anything wrong. It is like saying Nips instead of Nipples. Nobody is going to jail for saying Nips. If the city of Lancaster is coming out in defense of Nipples, saying proper feminism demands the full word, tough..... nobody who says nips will feel the slightest bit insulted. If the Scottish Parliament passes anti-discriminatory nip laws, nobody will play along, and will continue calling nip's nips, vag's vags, Nam Nam. Got that? Simple, ain't not issue with common English.
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