When I started Uke down this path of trying to get him to define gender, I was really expecting something different from "its correlates are genitalia and stereotypes"-- which seem like the sort of answers some uneducated slob at the local bar might give and not someone who is purporting to stand up for marginalized people or trying to broaden minds on this topic.

And I've still been given nothing on what it feels like to be a "man" or a "woman". It's like if I were a non-human sentient being and I asked what's it like being human, and was told "you eat, you sleep, you die, you pay taxes". Ok. All true...but it's still a non-answer.

As best as I can determine from Uke though, gender is a psychological state related to sex that we can't really define and don't have access to, even within our own individual minds, and the best way to determine what gender you are is to look and see how you match up with certain stereotypes of males and females-- which all seems very circular.

Probably a better definition for gender though would be something like "gender is a set of sex-specific rules imposed on individuals by society as a way of governing behavior between and amongst males and females"-- and that's basically the standard definition too interestingly enough.

But the key here is that it is not an internal state nor is it something that is intrinsic to individuals. I.e, when we talk about gender we're doing sociology, not psychology.

And I'm sure you could say "a trans person is a person who does not agree or want to go along with the set of sex-specific rules imposed on them by society", whereas a non-trans person does agree to those rules.

And I'm sure that's fine and it would make them legitimate non-conformists.

Yo, it’s almost as if gender is a social construct rather than a biological fact.

Weird how I've gotten so much pushback on this from you and Uke but if you're ready to agree to that then that's great.

Do you see how much better the conversation is when you just come out and say what you think instead of playing silly games?

What silly games have I played here?

Oh boy, here we go.

I mean don't you think it would go better if you were less dense?

Am I less dense? How am I less dense?

FWIW Uke's views on this subject actually aren't particularly progressive. Most progressives would probably find his acknowledgement that male and female are useful categories based on biology problematic.

So I would be careful coming to some sort of "understanding" with him and expecting it to work with people that have more progressive views. Most progressives have no problem believing that gender (and even sex) is a spectrum without meaningful discreet categories. And they aren't too interested in the biological realities (discreet binary chromosome arrangements and gamete categories) that 99% of people fit into that belie their beliefs.

Would you say that biological sex, to a first approximation, is a simple binary, but gender can be more complicated?

This seems like a reasonable definition. And also why (IMO) the progressive idea that individuals get to decide their gender at any given moment in time, and society has to play along, completely non workable.

I can say that, but I don't think most progressives would.

But gender can also not be more complicated. It is something cultures work out for themselves. Certainly there have been plenty of successful cultures through time (some of which are still around and will probably outlast Western culture) that don't make it much more complicated than this.

The idea that societies should develop rules that the majority should make extreme accommodations to accede to the wishes of its most marginalized members is a noble idea in theory (IMO). I just dont think it is tenable. And even ideas that might be tenable when things are going real well, during times of stress or uncertainty, probably wont last very long.

I suspect that if/when society collapses we will quickly revert to a social structure (culture) that looks more like ISIS than any western democracy. Which is why I find it particularly absurd when progressives say we need to burn it all down to build something better.

I think most progressives are closest to your views than you think.

Ya I don't know what tiktok rabbit hole you fell into, but orthodox progressive views about trans people absolutely acknowledge that broadly speaking humans are sexually dimorphic. I think what might be confusing you so badly is people ALSO note that it isn't a completely strict binary and there are people like intersex people whose birth anatomy doesn't neatly fit into one or the other.

Another alternative is we evolve into a 1984 style dystopia (sort of go the China route I guess), but I just dont see it happening in the US for a couple reasons:

1. The people are too well armed. For all the downsides of us being so well armed, it really is an impediment towards any totalitarian govt successfully taking control.
2. Lack of social cohesion.

You were the dude asking 20 questions about "psychological state" so I have no idea why you are now rejecting your own thesis.

My suggestion for the future is to stop buying the lede and just clearly state whatever the **** you think your point is. A good time to start doing that would be now.

There are exceptions to every biological "rule." I am well aware of that. Biology itself is mostly a descriptive simplification of more robust sciences.

Jesus man, some trans people existing isn't a ****ing dystopia.

Of course it isn't. But big govt/big tech/big brother mandating that we use the term "birthing people" to describe biological females might be a step in that direction.

“It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”
― George Orwell

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”
― George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

How extreme are these accommodations you speak of?

IMO the idea that any individual can choose their pronouns in any given moment, and the rest of society is required to go along with it in real time (or be castigated as a bigot), is untenable.

My goodness. Is it REALLY so hard for you to refer to Elliot Page with he/him pronouns? Buddy, this is easy. Untenable? GTFO.

So, uh, just conspiracy nonsense?