Gender Essentialism

[Nick_A]

She (my darling Simone !) was so abnormal that Albert Camus called her the greatest mind of the times.

That's absurd, Nick.

Dachshund

You must be a conformist. Simone Weil was absurd for all conformists. She is lucky she died when she did. If she would have lived into her forties she would have been strung up for sure. People who do not conform to collectives are simply intolerable.

Meet Simone Weil (1909-1943) – French philosopher, political activist, Christian mystic and enfant terrible. Described by John Berger as a “heretical theologian”, Albert Camus as “the only great spirit of our times”, and André Weil (her brother) as “the greatest pain in the arse for rectors and school directors”, Weil was – and remains – one of philosophy’s more divisive characters

Certain questions are considered absurd by conformists and cannot be tolerated by the majority. In institutions of indoctrination they are called a pain in the arse.

Simone Weil and Thomas Merton were born in France 6 years apart - 1909 and 1915 respectively. Weil died shortly after Merton entered the Abbey of Gethsemani. It is unclear whether Weil knew of Merton, but Merton records being asked to review a biography of Weil (Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love, Jacques Chabaud, 1964) and was challenged and inspired by her writing. “Her non-conformism and mysticism are essential elements in our time and without her contribution we remain not human.”

The conformist seeks the prestige acquired from remaining not human. The non conformist will earn the wrath of the indoctrinated and could even be strung up for being so absurd. Regardless, I still prefer the absurd.

[Nick_A]

Henry

N. "Could you explain to me why people who are different in their bodies deserve to be condemned regardless of what they are on the inside."

H. First off: they aren't different, they're loony. Second, they shouldn't be condemned, but pitied, Third, no favors are bein' dine for these folks by pretendin' they're women when they're men (and vice versa). The folks who deserve condemnation are the ones who damn well know they're catering to lunacy but who do it anyway.

First of all people considered to be loony are by definition different But suppose as people reach maturity a man feels like a woman. It could be argued that it is part indoctrination but also part hormonal. Is condemning or pity the only choices when face to face with a person considering themselves trans? Is understanding possible without emotional reactions?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... ly-thought

Del Giudice and colleagues conclude that from an evolutionary perspective personality traits are clearly not neutral with respect to sexual selection. "Instead, there are grounds to expect robust and wide-ranging sex differences in this area, resulting in strongly sexually differentiated patterns of emotion, thought, and behavior - as if there were two human natures."

What if their conclusion is right? What if there are essential differences between the sexes? Would you agree with me that those worthy of condemnation are these experts sanctioned in child abuse who take 8 year old undeveloped boys and indoctrinate them gradually into feeling like girls rather than helping them to experience what it means to become a man?

This transgender nonsense isn't about normal. It's about what is versus what isn't. We're talkin' about sumthin' as fundamental and real as 'fire burns' and we're debatin' on whether folks who say 'fire freezes' ought be taken seriously.

Consider how much the secular educated elite have done to prevent any realistic understanding of sexuality, who knows what is and what isn’t anymore? The ones who should be pitied are these poor kids surrounded by educated political indoctrination deprived of the opportunity for a realistic understanding of what they are.

Many male children are in a difficult position. It they aren’t killed as a fetus by abortion the experts will strive to cut their balls off so as not to experience what it means physically, psychologically, and spiritually, to be a man. If there are only a few left to guide them what can you expect other than the madness which has been created?

[henry quirk]

"First of all people considered to be loony are by definition different"

Yeah, but there's a big difference between different-crazy and different-unconventional. Folks with an awful agenda would make gender fluidity unconventional when it's just friggin' crazy.

#

"But suppose as people reach maturity a man feels like a woman."

What does 'feel like a woman' mean? I hear that said a lot, but never get an explanation. Anyway: if a man starts makin' noise about bein' a woman, I have to wonder why he's takin' a vacation from reality.

#

"It could be argued that it is part indoctrination but also part hormonal."

Psychological, physical, cultural: it's a problem that needs addressin', not catering to.

#

"Is condemning or pity the only choices when face to face with a person considering themselves trans? Is understanding possible without emotional reactions?"

If I won't accept an obvious delusion as anything but a delusion, what are my options? Leave them be? Already doin' that. Pretend Joe is a woman? I won't do that.

#

"What if there are essential differences between the sexes?"

There are essential, obvious, immutable, differences. That's my point.

#

"Would you agree with me that those worthy of condemnation are these experts sanctioned in child abuse who take 8 year old undeveloped boys and indoctrinate them gradually into feeling like girls rather than helping them to experience what it means to become a man?"

Sure.

#

"Consider how much the secular educated elite have done to prevent any realistic understanding of sexuality, who knows what is and what isn’t anymore?"

I do, you do, lots of folks do. Unfortunately, as I say, there are those with awful agendas in the mix too. There's a war on.

[Nick_A]

Henry

N. "It could be argued that it is part indoctrination but also part hormonal."

H. Psychological, physical, cultural: it's a problem that needs addressin', not catering to.

Very true. But there are essential differences in how people and politics address the human essence. For example I know that for a society to live with the ideal of liberty it requires an appreciation for the division of the sexes and their eventual unification under God. Without it the source of meaning becomes the state and its ideal of communism. The most obvious expression of the unification of the sexes is traditional marriage under God. This is why it is so hated and even the mention of it is like waving cross in front of a vampire. Traditional marriage is intolerable for those denying essential gender differences. This idea of equality in bathrooms is another example denying appreciation for physical gender differences.

But at the same time that the ideal has to be supported doesn't mean those in-between male and female must be persecuted for being different. A person can respect gender differences without having to cater to those in which differences are unclear. Everyone concerned with human liberty or one nation under god, should appreciate recognition of gender differences but those in which they aren't clear shouldn't be physically or emotionally persecuted. But at the same time trans people can respect the values which make liberty possible through acceptance of the source of human meaning.

[Scott Mayers]

@Dachshund (re: post:viewtopic.php?p=431354#p431354 ,

I think your own beliefs here are actually part of the problem. You are falsely associating left-wing politics as the causal motivator. The 'left' in most of the Western world is Collective Conservativists. That is, they are preferentially right-wingers who steal the 'democratic' side of the political spectrum because they are relatively disempowered to BE the dominant force. But when or where they get such power, they BECOME the new 'right'.

The original "democratic" ideal is based upon individuals. The money that supports their interests though lie with GROUPS. As such, those on the left who may argue with 'Marxist' claims of beliefs are more likely not well educated in the meanings. The Marxist idea, for instance, would NOT be to segregately interpret women from men outside of their literal sexual differences.

Today's extremes are due to the isolation of 'smart' tech and the power of increased world membership of all those who share similar thinking. As such, the sex and race issues are interpreted by each person's own preferences with apparently popularity believed to be shared by the most, regardless of the actual popularity shared by individuals. The trend to favor charges against the extremes that are traditionally of the 'right' are actually in sync with those extremes on the 'left' via popular GROUP affiliations with STRONG EMOTIVE factors, like your own clear disgust of the set of figures you list on the left in ignorance of those on the right who are contributing more. It is the added feature of genetic associations that are interrupting normal political associations people normally prefer but are FORCED out by exclusionary tactics by those like yourself as well as the extremes on the left. The only differences are about WHICH extremes should be preferred.

Today's 'feminism' is in sync with the same issues of 'race' now. The problems begin when someone demands forms of LAWS that reconciliate in ways that treat the fault of one classification of an issue with another. For example, a feminist today might look at the issue of the class, "poverty" by measuring the different statistics of men to women who are poor and then assign the CAUSE of the set of all women as suffering by all men rather than to deal with the actual particular problems that actually associate to those impoverished. So, using a statistic that might show more men as being official billionaires, they might be inappropriately used to 'prove' bias against women when the actual justification for the differences hides how the same 'culture' by BOTH men and women collectively contributed to the cause. For instance, do we consider the wives of these billionaire males as not relevant to the statistic simply because they might CHOOSE to stay at home in the background of their relationship? That is, both men and women contribute to the justification of men to be more likely Billionaires because they favor the qualities in men's "dominance" by their choice in being with them rather than with males who are relatively "submissive".

All the political turmoil today is directly part of this. The class of women, are more empowered to appeal in the very same ways as the traditional arrogant males who still believe that women should not have a right to abort: ....a religious, non-rational belief. They are using the tactics of the right, not the left, to fight now because they believe their hands are tied. If they don't act as crazy as the right-winger, then they will just end up being defeated. The only problem though, is that the normal individuals who didn't associate with the classifications are being forced into the definitions of the extremists. So a women who might normally be 'right-of-center' will feel obliged to join in with the women of the left because those women there are at least not going to the extremes of the right who prefer to see all women being subserviant to the male in the traditional "Patriarchal" ideals.

To me, the way you talk appears to indicate that you are against abortion, for instance, a very extreme right-wing religious ideology common to most extreme religions. How does being for legal abortion, for instance, relate to merely 'feminism' or 'left-wing' ideologies? It doesn't. I think abortion is fine. I disagree though that the men who got them pregnant should be dismissed outright because it super-empowers women when they also have another counter-belief they hold: a right to charge the male's who impregnated them to support the child should they alone CHOOSE to keep their baby. See? I'm not for either you NOR the extreme feminist who might believe they should have the only power to decide. Yet, your own view AND the extreme of the feminists demanding their own power are just competing extremes who differ only on WHO should be empowered uniquely. For you, I'm guessing by your own rhetoric, all women should not be permitted to abort.

I don't like ANY laws that favor 'culturally' defined classifications that are not logically relevant to the issue. Today's changes are religious and should not be a function of government lawmaking. I believe in EQUALITY, but not by imposing laws that define whole classes based upon cultural ideas as intrinsically related to economic ones. Your own imposition of asserting "Marxism" as related is faulty logic, even where many feminists would also embrace it. The logic of 'communism', for instance, is about equality among individual people, not classes based upon one's ethnicity. That this has and does also get falsely used historically by 'communist' countries, is only coincidental to the fact that their societies still HAVE religious believers who identify with their own 'cults' regardless. In other words, it wasn't the Marxist ideology, itself, anymore than the 'capitalist' of the West who is at fault by their definitions but to how the different styles of politics will always be most utilized in force by those affiliated strongly in certain extremes.

[Immanuel Can]

You are contradicting yourself. Or you are claiming chair isn't a category of object.

No, I'm not. We're past talking about "chairs," and way past talking about Essentialism, because we've already 100% agreed about what the implications of Essentialism would be, IF it were true.

Now I'm asking you this.

With no such thing as any essential "gender," what does a trans-person transform from and into, in your view?

[FlashDangerpants]

Because something is necessary in order for us to be able to distinguish an "object" from others. If there is no such feature, then everything is the same.

You are contradicting yourself. Or you are claiming chair isn't a category of object.

No, I'm not. We're past talking about "chairs," and way past talking about Essentialism, because we've already 100% agreed about what the implications of Essentialism would be, IF it were true.

No we aren't, and no we don't agree about those implications. You are avoiding providing a simple straight forward answer to entirely simple straightforward questions.

You already told me that all categories need an essence otherwise we cannot tell objects apart from each other. This does apply to chairs because it applies to all categories. OR it doesn't apply to chairs and therefore there is no reason to apply it to any category.

[Immanuel Can]

Dear IC,

I see that you are very interested in the question of transgenderism (?)

Not really, D. I am interested only in two questions about it at the moment.

Basically, what I'm interested in is how it's possible any person can rationally believe in it.

Given Gender Essentialism, it's incoherent. So far, everybody who's kicked in agrees with that, whether they are in favour of believe in Essentialism or not. If Essentialism were to be true, transgenderism would not be logically plausible.

Now, given a denial of Essentialism, that is, given Gender Non-Essentialism, can it be made any more rational? My suggestion is that the answer is "No."

.....

Now a personal note:

I'm happy to have the discussion with you, on any point at all. However, I have a favour to ask of you.

With some of what you wrote in your last message, I was in agreement. With a few things, perhaps I would have modifications or questions. However, I did not have the opportunity for such input and contribution to the direction of thought, and thus the "discussion" went in directions I do not wish to pursue, and will simply have to overlook. It simply opens up too many trails at one time.

So I think it will facilitate mutual understanding if we keep our messages relatively brief...at least no longer than it takes to develop one or two points. Then I think we owe it to each other to allow a response to a particular point, before moving on to other ones. We will have additional opportunities for exchange, so this won't interfere with us saying anything that is on our minds.

I will be happy, for my part, to keep each of my individual communications with you brief, rather than trying to forge longer and longer responses to longer and longer single discourses on the subject, as my goal here is conversation not monologue. I think we'll get more out of talking if we proceed in this way.

I trust that makes sense, and is also something you would prefer.

[henry quirk]

We agree on this: men and wonen are men and women (there are intrinsic qualities unique to each, that define each, and these qualities are immutable); folks with an anti-individual agenda are workin' hard to reduce the individual and redefine him as 'herd animal'; one strategy in this reduction and redefinition is obliteratin' the notion of gender as as anything other than social construct.

...and...

I don't favor persecution of the insane, the confused, or the out n out wrong. But, as I say, I don't favor goin' along to get along either. As I say: Joe wants to live as a woman, actually believe he is a woman, that's no skin offa my nose. Expectin' me to treat him as a woman (to participate in his delusion or error), yeah, that's not happenin'.

[henry quirk]

I asked this up-thread and got no answer, so again...

You meet a nice girl, get along well with her, bed her, and then, after the fact, she tells you she is or was a man.

What do you do?

[Dachshund]

I asked this up-thread and got no answer, so again...

You meet a nice girl, get along well with her, bed her, and then, after the fact, she tells you she is or was a man.

What do you do?

Take two 5mg Valium, then wash them down with a large slug of whisky.

D

[henry quirk]

I asked this up-thread and got no answer, so again...

You meet a nice girl, get along well with her, bed her, and then, after the fact, she tells you she is or was a man.

What do you do?

Take two 5mg Valium, then wash them down with a large slug of whisky.

D

[Dachshund]

We agree on this: men and wonen are men and women (there are intrinsic qualities unique to each, that define each, and these qualities are immutable)

Henry,


Suppose , just for arguments sake that you were kidnapped by a mad psychiatrist, and this psychiatrist surgically castrated you and then injected you with large doses of female hormones like oestrogen every day for a period of 2 months. When he finally released you, I can assure you that your gender would not be the same as it was before you were abducted. You would, to a material extent, be a less masculine and more feminine person. You would not have as strong an inner, subjective sense of being male as you had before the mad psychiatrist castrated you and subjected you to injections female hormones. If there was a gender continuum distributed along a horizontal axis like this:


100% MASCULINE..(X)..........................(Y).....50% MASCULINE - 50% FEMININE......................................100% FEMININE.


We could say, for instance, that (X) represents Henry's gender before he was kidnapped (i.e; the normal Henry), and (Y) represents Henriette's gender after being released by the crazy psychiatrist.


"Henriette" has a hairy chest, is quite muscular and still has whiskers on his chin, but also has with two little boobs. Moreover, s/he has more girly-type thoughts/fantasies and tendencies, is more empathetic, caring and emotive, less aggressive, and doesn't use expletives or fart (loudly).



Finally, consider this, neuroscientists have done LOADS of experiments to date on mammals (not humans though, - it is illegal for ethical reasons) where what they do is select a pregnant sheep , say, and take a sample the amniotic fluid from that pregnant sheep at an early stage in gestation. If they discover that the foetus is FEMALE, they then inject the pregnant sheep with substantial doses of testosterone (male hormone). When the baby sheep is born they find it behaves in a distinctively male manner (although it is genetically a female). What has happened is that the testosterone has masculinized certain of the structures/functions of the baby female sheep's brain/mind; so it thinks it is a male, and because it thinks male thoughts, and has male desires, motivations, emotional patterns, etc, it behaves just like a male sheep as it grows up. This is what they have observed.


NB: I do have grave misgivings about this kind of experimentation on animals, I instinctively view it as unethical; however, good arguments have been made to the effect that such research does not inflict any suffering on the animals and is conducted with a view to ultimately seek betterfuture treatments for human patients with serious sexual disorders, so what can I say ?


Regards


Dachshund

[henry quirk]

"I can assure you that your gender would not be the same as it was before you were abducted."

Yes. it would be...and I'd be pissed off at the mutilation, the incarceraton, the bein' treated like a lab rat.

I'd be a pissed off, mutilated man, and there'd be hell to pay.

[Immanuel Can]

We're past talking about "chairs," and way past talking about Essentialism, because we've already 100% agreed about what the implications of Essentialism would be, IF it were true.

No we aren't,

Oh? So you don't think Gender Essentialism would be a problem for transgenderism?

You'll need to explain why.