Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 3:59 pm
Trajk Logik wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 3:45 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 3:36 pm
I've gotten misunderstood here by more than one person so it's probably my lack of clarity. The topic is about a contradiction in the woke community. I am not making a case for souls. Nor am I explaining 'gender.' I am not asking people to use that word or whatever concept I intend with it. My point was that a monist, in this case generally a physicalist, has a problem accepting that transpersons have the wrong birth body. I do not have this problem because my metaphysics leaves room for this. I don't think a physicalist's metaphysics does. That was why I brought up my belief, to contrast it with the physicalist position. Not to replace it, but to make it clearer what I think the physicalist problem ought to be with transpersons who say their body is not right for them.
So, why physicalism? Well, because wokism in general goes with a physicalist model. They may not use that term or even 'materialist', but I think generally, with exceptions of course, they are physicalists and also monists. Bringing in the latter is redundant but points to the problem with 'this is not the right body for me.' Who is this me and what are they made of?
What's 'freedom'? What's thought? If we're going to focus on ill-defined words, we could start with those. Though perhaps in another thread.
I'm not woke and I'm saying that gender and biological sex are one and the same. So it's not a dualism vs. physicalism debate. Dualism just unnecessarily complicates things.
Gender and biological sex are so obvious NOT the same thing: check out any definition.
And NEITHER gender nor biological sex are simply binary.
Are you able to accept that the brain and organs of reproduction might not align with the social norms of gender?
Are you able to accept gender ambiguity regardless of the possession of a penis or not?
Are you able to accept the existence of hermaphrodites? Or neuters?
Asexual people?
Is it not bleeding obvious that a person's sexuality is innate, social, genetic, physical and personal, and not easy to unpack with simple philosophical concepts.
Merriam-Webster shows that one of the definitions of gender IS sex:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender
If gender has nothing to do with sex, then why is "gender-affirming care" cutting off primary sex organs and changing secondary sex traits (like hormone treatments)? Why is gender opposite or aligned with one's sex instead of one's hair, eye or skin color?
I can accept that the brain and organs (not just of reproduction) might not align with some social norm - like believing your arm is an alien arm and cutting it off using the the saw at your local hardware store (this really happened). Some people's brains make them think that they might be a Sith Lord or Elvis Presley reincarnated. Does that mean we are suppose to believe them without question and address them as "My Master" or "The King"?
If gender is a social construction, then yes I can accept there is gender ambiguity that men can wear dresses, but that does not change their gender/sex. They are just a man in a dress. But a I said before, gender as a social construction is a feature of a society, not an individual.
Yes, I accept the existence of intersexual people, but then they always have more features of one sex than the other and tend to adopt one of the binary identities, not make up their own category as you would expect if genders were actually non-binary or fluid, (again if gender is a social construction) of which they most likely resemble. Also keep in mind that intersex cannot reproduce and are also very rare.
Biological sex is based on a combination of traits:
- chromosomes (in humans, XY is male, XX female)
- genitals (penis vs. vagina)
- gonads (testes vs. ovaries)
- hormones (males have higher relative levels of testosterone than women, while women have higher levels of estrogen)
- secondary sex characteristics that aren’t connected with the reproductive system but distinguish the sexes, and usually appear at puberty (breasts, facial hair, size of larynx, subcutaneous fat, etc.)
Using genitals and gonads alone, more than 99.9% of people fall into two non-overlapping classes—male and female—and the other traits almost always occur with these. If you did a principal components analysis using the combination of all five traits, you’d find two widely separated clusters with very few people in between. Those clusters are biological realities, just as horses and donkeys are biological realities, even though they can produce hybrids (sterile mules) that fall morphologically in between.
It really doesn't have anything to do with philosophy. It has to do with science. The problem is when people want to make it political/philosophical is when we overcomplicate the issue and end up generalizing, stereotyping people that have nothing to do with their sex (like wearing a dress or make-up; men can wear dresses and make-up and still be men).