I answered the question as asked. Anyone can get offended by anything they choose to.

This is what I mean about weird implications and lack of clarity though. Saying someone is "non-biological" is really weird to me. They have a biology, right? And a trans man has a bunch of male traits (perhaps enhanced as a result of hormone therapy). Also a trans man might have been born female but still have some biological basis for being trans, so is he a trans male?

I get it seems intuitive to you but on inspection I still think it gets very messy.

It's far easier to separate sex and gender and just say male/female as biological terms, and man/woman as gender. Then qualify man/woman with trans or cis if needed.

If you wanted to go simpler for people who aren't clued up then I'd say the easiest way would just be to say something like "he's male, and he's trans". Pretty much everyone recognises male/female as being about biology, and anyone who still watches the news knows what trans means. Gets you around the cis thing for the uninitiated. It's not perfect political correctness but it avoids all this messy "biological male" stuff.

This.

I wouldn't call a person who thought that they were Napolean "crazy" to their face, for example.

You don't actually think. That's the problem with you.

In which case I have to edit my statements. Yes, what Paul D is saying is true. I have not thought of that. Transwomen and men, are getting killed in countries in the middle east, asia, india and europe on a regular basis. So yes, it is an issue. We know that a significant number of the population is facing transformation, or is living happlily as transgender. So yes, not accepting their language is probably ignorant.

YOu just answered it wrongly is what i am pointing out.

If someone asked me if any religious person should get upset when someone purposely blasphemes in their presence? I would not say 'no'.

I am not one to say what should or should not make them upset.

I can certainly think it is silly to get upset when someone gets rustled over a mystical sky god being called names based on my view of the situation. But to say they should not get upset, as if I have a check list I can supply them of the things that are 'approved' to get upset for is silly.

you truncated the quote though. Your question was is there such a thing as 'non biological MALES' and the answer to your question is 'yes, transmales'.


I was not saying you would use the term 'non biological males'.

And again I think you guys are just purposely trying to avoid the point I am making.

IN an ideal world everyone is up on and onboard all the appropriate political correct and woke language the minute it gets accepted. I would like if such a magic wand existed.

I am simply telling you that if I am playing tennis with my middle America/Canada friends who are not on social media and not woke, but also not in any way negative to anyone living their life and I tried to describe someone as a cis male and the other person standing beside them as a male, more times than not, I would get a blank stare. If i said 'ya, they are both male but the person on the right is trans and the one on the left cis' they would say WTF is cis?

If i said 'they are both males. The one on the right transmale and the other biological male', i am positive that without even trying they would instantly know what I meant.


Now don't switch from this to 'good chance for a teaching moment' and the round and round we go, as I am fine giving a teaching moment if they want it, but if they don't (and it does not have to be bad or malice that they don't) because they got it by transmale and biological male and they have now moved on, that is fine too.

This is an important point - not necessarily in application to interactions in this thread, but more generally in the "real world". I believe this is definitely a thing - people want to get it right, but are scared of getting it wrong, so try to avoid it altogether. Whatever "it" might be - discussing an issue, addressing a problem, etc. People need to be given space to make mistakes when they're trying to do the right thing. But of course the other side of this, which makes it difficult to provide that space at times, are those who intentionally make "mistakes".

Yup.

Oh. So people aren't allowed to be offended, and instead should just stay at home? Sounds like a pretty good outcome for the bigots.

Oh, that's funny. Those politically correct wokesters, amirite?



Oh, well, that's so much better.

+1

People can choose to be offended about anything they want at any time.

People can choose to be offended by anything they want.

I know you're not saying you'd use the term "non-biological males". That's the point. It's really weird and no one would say it, but it's implied by the term "biological males" that such weirdness exists. Maybe this is just how my mind intuits things but that's the kind of absurdity that leaps put at me when I hear phrases like that. I just go straight to the notion of a non-biological person and it seems immediately obvious that this doesn't make any sense as a qualifier.

That and the other weird and confusing implications I've given you.

This is why I gave you an easy alternative. Not everyone knows what cis is but almost everyone knows what trans is. Now I don't think it's ideal that we would qualify one and not the other, but if you're talking to someone who isn't clued up on these things and you don't want to go into it then just add the qualifier "trans" to trans men and women and don't bother with the cis bit at all. If you want to refer to biology then just say male or female and everyone knows what you mean without any need for you to add "biological" in front of it.

I believe that you can think, but I'm not literally certain about it.

Are you sure?
Would you agree that Thailand is the most progressive country in how they treat trans people?
Suicide rate for trans people is extremely high there too.

I’m sure ignorance doesn’t help, but not convinced it is a major factor.

Im pretty sure ignorance is a major factor. They see no other option, are not socially accepted, often rejected from their families and defamed. That all can lead to suicide. A major role plays of course identiy crisis. Not knowing where to belong etc, whats right, whats wrong, and not knowing their true sex. But a major role would play the (understanding or not) environment as always. When you have supportive people it helps a lot I am sure. And how would you feel of your folks disavow you? Its all connected.

If you are talking social acceptance of ladyboys in Thailand, you are probably right. Not so much legal rights I think. Brazil has a lot of trans people too.


https://matadornetwork.com/read/coun...gender-rights/

Thailand is not anywhere the top in gay friendly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay-friendly

Here Thailand is actually on the list, you were right I guess: https://www.internations.org/magazin...t-expats-39270

I have no idea about Thailand. However, the sense I have is that societal acceptance of trans people definitely is a large factor. This comes out in survey data in many ways, but since we are talking about pronouns ITT here is just one:

I read the survey. I tried to find the numbers but couldn’t.
The study was on 40k LGBTQ individuals.
I would be interested to know how many of them (trans + non binary with pronouns respected by most/all people in their lives) are represented in the stat you quoted. I imagine it is quite small, probably even statistically insignificant.
Yet everything I have seen from real world data indicates that trans people don’t necisarriky do better in more progressive places, or after transitioning.

While I think we should make the effort to be inclusive towards them in any reasonable way, I have doubts that it will bring anywhere near the results that Trevor project study is projecting it will.

I think that humans really don’t have any idea what is best to do on this issue. Nothing seems to work. All I can say confidently is that gender dysphoria seems like a horrible thing I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

Ah excellent, well please do share! If you don't like this survey of 40k participants, please share the real world data you have seen.

Out of those 40k participants, how many do you think identified both as trans and non-binary, while also having their preferred pronouns respected by most people in their life?

Keep in mind the 40k participants weren’t all trans. Only requirement to be in the servey was to beLGBTQ.. The quote you picked is dealing with a tiny percent of that 40k group. So that big 40k number is meaningless here.

Off the top of my head, when I looked it up the Thai suicide rate for trans people was near 40% in one of if not the most accepting places on earth.

I was also looking into the Netherlands. I forget the number but was reading a paper that the suicide rate for trans there is very high too.

I could post some links tomorrow if you like. Bed time.

Also, I think causes of suicide are still unknown in a lot of cases, not just this. Why do white people commit suicide at such a higher rate than black people in USA? Doesn’t that seem counter intuitive?

I think the answer is vastly more complex than use the right pronouns/be more inclusive and the suicide will drop to near normal levels. I think that is a very small element to an insanely difficult problem.

Great, yes please do tomorrow post the "real world data" that you claim you have previously seen that show trans people don't do better after transitioning. I'm definitely hoping you have something more than one thailand stat!

Ok I will tomorrow when I am at my computer.

But I take it your non-response to the rest of my post means you concede the study you posted is worthless.

You seem like a smart guy. Prob smarter than me tbh, but
It is amazing to me how when people see a study that agrees with their POV they don’t think critically about it at all.

Just, “wow 40k!! BIG number. Suicide cut in half! Wow! Another big number that confirms my position, sweet!” Post.

I actually think that has the potential of being taken as far more insulting.

That person is 'male' and the other is 'transmale' sound to me that like one is a 'true' male and the other pseudo. But we have tread into our personal opinions on what would be more effective with 'others' so without a poll it is pointless for us to debate that.

I would not see myself saying it that way as I want it known they are both 'male' and then they BOTH have a way of delineating it further if you need further distinction.

This thread reminds me of the old Abbott and Costello "Whose on First" routine.

When I write, I often use the word s/he which is more succinct that writing "he or she". Maybe there could be found a similar way to address gender indifferently that would be more inclusive.

I wouldn't use the term "trans male" at all. I think it's ambiguous and conflates sex and gender. Again, is a "trans male" someone born female but wants to be male, or is it a male who is trans and therefore a woman? I'd stick to "trans man" and "male", and the distinction makes sense because one refers to gender and the other to a biological category. Someone else might differ here, that's true enough, and maybe tell me I'm wrong.

My more general point though was that in the situations you were talking about, you could just avoid using the cis part at all. You could just say that one of them is trans and one isn't, and then you only really need them to be aware enough to have heard of trans people, and if they aren't even aware of that much you've got some explaining to do whatever you say. That, at the very least, seems far easier and less objectionable than the "biological man" thing.

Though this does tread into something else that's contentious, definitely feels unnatural, but has some credibility to it, and that's the idea of (and I hate this phrase) "People first language". Which is what it sounds like. For instance, instead of saying "an autistic child" say "a child with autism", placing their essential characteristic before the description.

And this does feel unnatural to me at a first take but this analogy made a lot of sense to me:
If I describe someone as a "bad person" that does have a different implication to if I said "a person who did a bad thing/s". The former implies some kind of essential characteristic where as the latter makes it sound incidental. And when I think about it, I probably would use the descriptions with that intent. There does seem to be an intuitive difference between a "bad person" and a "person who did bad things". It unfortunately comes with the consequence of being longer but I imagine in the future we'll hear that kind of language used much more frequently.

And this is really part of the problem and challenge.

Even here, in a good faith effort between people who are actively thinking about this and trying to figure out what the right path is to 'not offend' it is in no way a clear or easy path.

Maybe Blades is right above but I still think my way is potentially less pitfall ridden. But we can certainly agree to disagree.

But to the layperson, raising their family in middle America/Canada who has no exposure to Trans people or trans issue and does not go on social media and as such this is simply not an issue they have dedicate two brain cells too, there should be immense accommodation and understanding of their lack of wokeness. And yet sadly, more typically the opposite is true.

Well do you see my point though that if they know what being trans means that you only actually need to say "S/he is trans" and you've made the distinction without going any further into the whole cis thing? And if they don't know what being trans is then you're going to have to do some explaining whatever you say.