Preferred pronouns

[Angilion]

So no...you're not accepting the intrinsic link instilled by biology then...

Not where it doesn't exist, no. The idea that almost every individual matches whatever sex-based stereotypes are fashionable in the time and place they live and does so in every way in every thing is just silly. That's not an "intrinsic link instilled by biology" any more than it's "ordained by God". Appeal to authority fallacy.

Yes things are in a spectrum but even spectra have limits. And outliers are just that, outliers. Abnormalities. For example I could be a tall man, or a short man. Height is a spectrum, I could also be abnormally tall, or abnormally short but I'm still a man. The same applies to gender. You can lie anywhere on the spectrum but you're still on it.

You're arguing the existence of a fundamental and intrinsic seperation into only two settings. That's very different from "spectra have limits". And you're confusing gender with sex again when you confuse height (which is gender) and male (which is sex).

Unless you can tell me where unicorn Princess sits on the gender spectrum?

Which gender spectrum? Everything that's gendered (either instrinsically or socially) is its own gender spectrum. "unicorn Princess" doesn't contain any information about gender. "princess" is a title that refers to sex, not to gender. So without information about unicorns in general, ideas regarding gender in unicorn societies and the individual unicorn you're referring to, I couldn't place that unicorn in any position on any gender spectrum.

Again I'll point out we're not discussing inanimate objects but people where gendered terminology is entirely appropriate and has nothing to do with the might of the British Empire.

Again I'll point out that your argument was that without gender in the context of pronouns for people (as you've emphasised repeatedly) we'd be screwed. History shows otherwise.

 

[Angilion]

Liking pink has nothing to do with gender or sex. It's a farcical example and shows the level of your argument.

Liking pink is very much gendered, at least in the UK. It used to be gendered quite strongly masculine, then it became gendered extremely feminine, now it's gendered strongly feminine. Once again, you are confusing gender and sex.

If I'm over 7ft tall, does it mean I'm not a man? It lies outwith of the normal spectrum of heights.

Why would you think that? Why are you asking me the question? It has nothing to do with me - the idea that a person whose height is significantly different from average is neither male nor female is something you just brought up.

 

[Nasher]

Sex and gender are the same thing. You can sex or gender an animal, they are interchangable.

You can have feminin and masculin traits, that is the spectrum.

The only people trying to complicate things are the "gender studies" loonies who are just trying to make it fit their ideals and bully anyone who disagrees.

 

[Dis86]

Liking pink is very much gendered, at least in the UK. It used to be gendered quite strongly masculine, then it became gendered extremely feminine, now it's gendered strongly feminine. Once again, you are confusing gender and sex.



Why would you think that? Why are you asking me the question? It has nothing to do with me - the idea that a person whose height is significantly different from average is neither male nor female is something you just brought up.

I'm asking you because you're the one asserting that if gender has this large spectrum and that if someone deviates from the norm on it they're no longer a he or a she and are instead one of any infinite number of genders.

Ergo if I, as a human male, deviate from a normal human male height am I no longer a human male? Am I instead one of an infinite number of well...something else?

 

[Freefaller]

I never realised pink was associated with gender! Learn something new!

I also think there are 2 sexes but within the male and female there is a scale of how feminine / masculine you feel. The fact that you are neither, biologically doesn't make sense (to me at least). However, I will still respect the person's wish to identify as neither. I still think it's a bit of attention seeking, but everyone has a right to feel happy in themselves, and if that means they are a "they" then whatever. I'll try my damndest not to offend them by calling them he/she, but they need to be patient for those of us who are just not familiar / comfortable with that concept.

 

[Angilion]

I'm asking you because you're the one asserting that if gender has this large spectrum and that if someone deviates from the norm on it they're no longer a he or a she and are instead one of any infinite number of genders.

Ergo if I, as a human male, deviate from a normal human male height am I no longer a human male? Am I instead one of an infinite number of well...something else?

You're still writing from the perspective that sex and gender are the same thing. So what you're writing has nothing to do with me or anything I've written because I don't share that perspective. In effect, we're speaking different and mutually unintelligable languages.

But I'm a stubborn old git, so I'll keep trying.

"I'm asking you because you're the one asserting that if gender has this large spectrum and that if someone deviates from the norm on it they're no longer a he or a she and are instead one of any infinite number of genders."

No, I am not asserting that. I have not said that. I have not said anything like that. You have created that assertion, which neither of us has made, in order to try to fit my position into your belief that sex and gender are the same thing. My position is that sex and gender are not the same thing, so trying to fit anything I've said into the belief that sex and gender are the same thing is wrong and will inevitably lead to wrong and strange conclusions.

I haven't even said that "gender has this large spectrum". I've said that everything that is gendered has its own spectrum, that there are a large (very large) number of gender spectrums. Gender is anything that is associated with sex, so anything that has any degree of correlation with sex (for any reason, inherent or social) has its own gender spectrum. Colours. Types of music. Types of films. Pets. Clothing. Cosmetics. Hairstyles. Etc, etc, etc. Any one person will be at different positions on different spectrums and the spectrums themselves will be different in different cultures and at different times in the same culture. As a result, everyone will deviate from the norm in at least some gender spectrums.

"Ergo if I, as a human male, deviate from a normal human male height am I no longer a human male? Am I instead one of an infinite number of well...something else?"

That might be the conclusion from the assertions you've made up (see above) but it has nothing to do with me. You're asking me to explain an assertion you've made - you should be asking yourself.

I can't stress this enough - gender is not sex. A woman in the UK who is 5'9" tall (the average for men in the UK IIRC) is not male. A man who is 5'4" tall (the average for women in the UK IIRC) is not female. There is no connection. There's no cutoff point where gender becomes sex. That's not a thing.

 

[Angilion]

I never realised pink was associated with gender! Learn something new!

Pink has been considered a feminine colour in the UK (and some other places) for longer than I've been alive. Probably longer than you've been alive. Not so long ago it was considered an absolutely feminine colour, as extremely gendered as anything gets. It's a bit odd that you never realised.

Pink still is considered feminine in the UK, though not as much as in the past. Random example - quite a few people consider it weird when I wear a pink mask because I'm male and pink is a feminine colour in the fashions of here and now. A couple of days ago, a customer asked me if I was making a statement with my pink mask. Probably indirectly asking if I was gay. That's happened before. So I answered them honestly - I bought the pink mask because I thought it looked pretty. I bought a couple of dozen masks with various patterns on them. All of the masks were labelled as being for women. That was on the packaging and on the shelf in the shop I bought them from. Of course, none of the masks are sexed in any way - how could they be? But they are gendered because of the colours and the patterns, which are considered feminine. Especially the pink ones and the flowery ones. And the manufacturers and the retailer were going along with the sex == gender idea.

Pink was gendered masculine in the UK a bit further back in the past, but I'm not aware of any period of time in which it was ungendered. Maybe it was at some point in history, maybe not. As I said, gender changes over time in the same place. Because most of gender is artificial. The bits that aren't are statistical and thus don't apply to any individual. Even if 99.9% of the people who like something are one sex, that doesn't say anything about any person who likes that thing and are the other sex or who are that sex but are disinterested in that thing.

 

[Freefaller]

If you say so!

I have plenty of pink stuff which no one has ever commented on, but I don't really care anyway. I'll keep an eye/ear out for it next time.

 

[dowie]

People are talking cross purposes - neither the gender-critical views or the gender theory type views are inherently correct.

IF you define gender in a given way then...

IF someone else defines it in a different way then...

Essentially if you're using different axioms then there isn't really a meaningful conversation to be had.

It's perfectly legit for someone to think of gender as a more abstract social construct completely detached from sex and in addition to that to perhaps declare that "man" and "woman" are terms that refer to gender, they might well have quite vague or ill-defined criteria for man or woman along the lines of: anyone who says/believes they are a woman is a woman. Within such a framework "trans women ARE women" is a truthful statement.

Others might not accept or use those definitions and might choose to define, for example, "woman" as: "adult, human female". They might still have a definition of gender that differs from sex but might or might not also believe that you can't change your sex or indeed your gender and that they are inherently linked.

Perhaps they believe that you can be an effeminate man or a masculine woman and/or they might accept things like gender dysphoria or terms like "trans woman" and respect the choice of people to use pronouns belonging to the opposite sex/gender but within their framework "trans women ARE women" is a false statement.

A lot of the arguments about this stuff are just over language/semantics - though it gets framed as silly stuff like denying the existence of trans people etc... Regardless, gender-critical views are protected in the UK as a recent court case has shown, what perhaps isn't protected is how you treat others - you don't have to accept that a trans woman is literally a woman, an employer can't deny your belief or philosophical position there but if a trans woman in your workplace chooses to use she/her and you decide to misgender them by referring to them as he/him then you're the one at fault.

 

[Angilion]

If you say so!

It's not just me. Nor is it just the UK. Here, as one example of very many, is an article on the subject from the USA in 2018:

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/colorscope-pink-boy-girl-gender/index.html

Many people I know who've had children have waited until they know the sex of the child before buying clothes (or blankets, or curtains, or decorating the baby's room, etc) so they can buy stuff of the "right" colour. It's common enough to be normal.

I have plenty of pink stuff which no one has ever commented on, but I don't really care anyway. I'll keep an eye/ear out for it next time.

IIRC, you're a big, muscular man. That would probably have some effect on how likely people are to comment on you wearing a "girly colour".

Or maybe fashion has changed recently and the people I know are unfashionable in that respect. Or maybe the fashion has changed where you live but not where I live. Gender is mostly fashion, which is mostly nonsense with no meaning and no connection to reality.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

If you say so!

I have plenty of pink stuff which no one has ever commented on, but I don't really care anyway. I'll keep an eye/ear out for it next time.

Pink stuff when a girl is born.

Blue stuff for boys.

Have you never seen a pink tutu?

 

[Freefaller]

This is genuinely interesting @Angilion thanks

Yes I'm quite a big bloke but never thought of that making me more manly or whatever - it's just a side effect of many decades of rugby and powerlifting.

Our kids all had neutral colours in their rooms because well frankly we felt it was easier and we didn't find the sex of our kids till after birth. Both of them (one of each) have all worn blue pink white and every other colour. Heck my daughter's favourite colour is blue! She seldom chooses pink. I guess my wife and I have never associated colours with sex, even if it seems to be common, I guess we're not influenced by those things?

 

[Freefaller]

Pink stuff when a girl is born.

Blue stuff for boys.

Have you never seen a pink tutu?

Yes and I've seen black tutus... what's your point?

 

[Dis86]

@dowie I'm defining it as its defined in the dictionary. Not in a made up way.

 

[Angilion]

This is genuinely interesting @Angilion thanks

Yes I'm quite a big bloke but never thought of that making me more manly or whatever - it's just a side effect of many decades of rugby and powerlifting.

My suggestion was that other people might well do so. Or be dissuaded from commenting if they were thinking it.

[..] IIRC, you're a big, muscular man. That would probably have some effect on how likely people are to comment on you wearing a "girly colour".[..]

In a similar vein, gendered fashions in ancient Rome changed partly due to that. Covering your legs was gendered feminine (most ancient Roman men usually wore a short dress - togas were formal wear). When Rome expanded further north into Europe, Roman legionaries adopted the local custom of trousers for practical reasons and fashion changed. Few people would think a legionary was being effeminate and fewer would tell him even if they were thinking it.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

Yes and I've seen black tutus... what's your point?

'In Europe and the United States, pink is often associated with girls, while blue is associated with boys. These colors were first used as gender signifiers just prior to World War I (for either girls or boys), and pink was first established as a female gender signifier in the 1940s.'

 

[Freefaller]

My suggestion was that other people might well do so. Or be dissuaded from commenting if they were thinking it.



In a similar vein, gendered fashions in ancient Rome changed partly due to that. Covering your legs was gendered feminine (most ancient Roman men usually wore a short dress - togas were formal wear). When Rome expanded further north into Europe, Roman legionaries adopted the local custom of trousers for practical reasons and fashion changed. Few people would think a legionary was being effeminate and fewer would tell him even if they were thinking it.

You know what? I've been thinking about this - and I decided to speak to my folks this morning, and they admitted to remove biases from colours for me and my sibling(s) so we were never typecast with certain colours, so that's probably why it's never seemed to be that "obvious" to me? Furthermore, bearing in mind that for the majority of my formative pre-teen years I spent in France, Mediterranean and the Middle East so I guess I was exposed to a slightly different "normal" - though looking at it there does seem to be colour association with gender to a certain degree. In my over 4 decades I must admit it was something I was rather ignorant of! I guess we've followed suit with our kids by not influencing their colours based on their sex. It is definitely something I will be more aware of now.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

You know what? I've been thinking about this - and I decided to speak to my folks this morning, and they admitted to remove biases from colours for me and my sibling(s) so we were never typecast with certain colours, so that's probably why it's never seemed to be that "obvious" to me? Furthermore, bearing in mind that for the majority of my formative pre-teen years I spent in France, Mediterranean and the Middle East so I guess I was exposed to a slightly different "normal" - though looking at it there does seem to be colour association with gender to a certain degree. In my over 4 decades I must admit it was something I was rather ignorant of! I guess we've followed suit with our kids by not influencing their colours based on their sex. It is definitely something I will be more aware of now.

I mean its not something you should actually do. The point is that most of western society thinks that a boy that likes pink is feminised / trans, and same for a girl that prefers darker drab colours. Its the same in France and likely the Mediterranean too, your parents must have hugely sheltered you.

 

[Lopéz]

My wife is from Slovakia, which is certainly more er.... traditional? than a lot of Western Europe; and when I said I was wearing a pink tie for our wedding, I'm not sure her eyebrow could have been raised much higher.

 

[Freefaller]

I mean its not something you should actually do. The point is that most of western society thinks that a boy that likes pink is feminised / trans, and same for a girl that prefers darker drab colours. Its the same in France and likely the Mediterranean too, your parents must have hugely sheltered you.

Nah I was the opposite of sheltered.