Wow if only there were some way we could distinguish between biological sex and gender identity.

I have no problems with most of what Uke is about. The gays have always been some of my favorite people and since the trans are closely related to them, they're in too.

But it's important to remember that gender as a psychological concept was invented in 1959, and it's been on shaky metaphysical ground since that time. So it's not really too fair to accuse me of playing word games when we have people posting in this thread older than the concept itself.

Being an advocacy group, they are putting forth what they want to be the standard, not defining what the standard is (this shouldn't be controversial, it's right in your post). I'm sure I can find any number of groups pushing for language usage that we all can agree is silly. But, if over time they convince enough people to start using words they way they want, that usage will become standard.
There is no single authority on usage. But, established dictionaries and style guides would be a much better source than an advocacy group. (And these established sources may very well agree with the advocacy group.)



If you guys want to say, "in general, this is how trans people would like to be referred to, and it's respectful to follow their wishes", I don't see how anyone can argue about that.

If you followed the discussion last night then it seems pretty clear that the definition is based on identification. Uke won't admit that it is solely based on identification, but when pressed for more he refuses to give any.

This is fair. OED seems to use "transgender." Although since we've logically proven that none of these people exist, it shouldn't matter.


I don't mean to blow your mind here, but have you considered that some people here simply don't give a **** about the wishes and feelings of transgender people?

I'm not sure how this relates to what I said. The notional quote is question was "in general, this is how trans people would like to be referred to, and it's respectful to follow their wishes", to which I said, "I don't see how anyone can argue about that". Of course people could disagree with the "respectful" part of the quote - it's an opinion. What can't be argued is "this is how trans people would like to be referred to".

This discussion between uke and Luckbox is more interesting than most discussions in this thread.

From a purely epistomological and metaphysical perspective, Luckbox's questions about uke's proposed definition of "woman" seem fair. But I suspect that uke is coming at this question more from a social policy perspective. And for the purposes of social policy, uke's definition may be good enough.

Again, not to blow anyone's mind, but what if the people trying to logically prove that transgender people don't exist also have social policy perspectives in mind?

Eh, I'm being hyperliteral I guess.

The problem is so many on the left think its a trap question when its not.

For me a woman is a mother, daughter and sister and someone that can give birth to a baby.

Many of them do. Who said otherwise?

A fundamental question, which supposedly is unanswerable to date scientifically, is whether a transgender person actually has innate male or female physiological differences in opposition to their assigned sex of male or female at birth. This was touched upon, for example, when the existence of intersex traits were brought up earlier in the thread to demonstrate the possibility of such differences. I believe that most people who are against transgender(ness, ism, this is something I dislike, the lack of an acceptable noun here, to the best of my knowledge) being reduced to a personal identifier, believe there are some as of yet undiscovered innate genetic traits for the most part, but I think that of those people, some would go so far as to suggest that the inner feelings of a transgender person's transgender(ness, ism, I opt not for "identity" because it is not the word I want to have to use here) are so real and powerful, that even if it were somehow proven that no innate traits existed (not saying that's actually possible), that establishing and adhering to polite and respectful word usage should be afforded to transgender people all the same. However, I think that concerns that such rules can be overbearing are valid, that the discussion about it is valid, and also that this forum is should be considered a reasonable and safe place for it.

As I have mentioned a couple of times thus far, I think that transgender expression is very much related to sexuality and sexual drives, just as cisgender gender expression is related to sexuality and sexual drives, but I think that such discussion is risky here, because it runs the risk of questioning the validity of transgender people's identity in the eyes of transgender advocates and supporters. The only person I recall advancing anything on this front in any serious way is 57onRed, and his views on transgender people are not very popular here, probably to any poster no matter where their views fall on transgender(noun).

It's because it's to some degree tautological. "Biological male/female" certainly is tautological.

As silly as the phil 101 bit is, you aren't even doing it correctly. It isn't circular. "people who call themselves women" is a well defined notion and I am labelling that notion women. Yes the phrase women appears inside the definition, but at a different level of analysis. It's pretty simple: both trans women and cis women call themselves women and I am utterly unpersuaded by these phil 101 arguments to suggest I should do otherwise.

I think this is reasonable. I care about actual people and their lived experiences and how to try and be respectful and inclusive. Luckbox might well be perfectly inclusive in real life, but what seems to animate him in these discussion is this sort of philosophy "metaphysics" mumbo jumbo bit. And look, I like philosophy, I've done my time in the philosophy trenches in my 20s too, but colour me rather unimpressed with the level of sophistication on offer here.

No, it isn't.

It is in fact a laughably bad notion.

I think this is about half correct. Yes, GLAAD is an advocacy group. But they are a very successful one in the sense that they have sort of become the authoritative default across the media for like 3 decades. If you want to look up what an average like NYT journalist is likely to use, well they are probably checking GLAAD or NYTs internal style guides are likely to be pretty aligned with GLAAD. So it really can be used to measure what the default respectful language is these days and not just as a sort of fringe advocacy group like a college campus newspaper or something that is using tonnes of new terms most people have never heard of. Finally, a bunch of the purpose of the guide is informing us of the terms that are commonly used and the terms that are not commonly used in the LGBT community and they do a pretty good job from what I've ever heard of noting that.

So I think this is a useful informative source and not just "an advocacy group".



I while back before Cuepee abandonded the forum, he was rejecting GLAAD and I went through at the time a half dozen other media style guides that were not GLAAD. They were pretty much all uniform in their recommendations, and actually a bunch of the other ones cited GLAAD repeatedly. So yes your parenthetical is generally true, and while I agree there is no single authority on usage, and am totally happy if you look up multiple sources, I think for a quick first check there isn't an obvious better source than GLAAD.

What part of "people who call themselves women" is confusing to you? This seems like a perfectly clear concept to me. I could also consider the set of people who call themselves Christian, again absolutely a well-defined set of people.

So you agree women are a well-defined set of people.

What are the characteristics that define "women"?

I'm certainly for people doing basically whatever they want. Change sex, get piercings, tattoos, alter ones body however they want, dress how they want etc. I certainly don't want anyone telling me I can't.

But that doesn't also mean that gender ideology isn't problematic-- because it is, and it's problematic for the exact same sorts of people that you think it's benefiting.

Although tbf I'd probably still be here breaking it down regardless of whether I thought it was problematic or not, because I like this sort of stuff.

But given your responses last night it's not too surprising that you're "unimpressed"-- which is fine.. You've essentially admitted that gender is a faith based belief and you're a zealot for it-- and there is no reasoning with zealots.

I've got this Uke.

Women are people who think they're women.

A combination of female traits and gender expressions, some of which may be innate or based on external input. That seems like a list of characteristics that could satisfy the demands of most.

No. Your entire post is about how they advocate for certain terms and how to use them. The fact that they have succeeded in bringing these terms into mainstream usage is irrelevant. If you recall, I didn't dispute any of the points you made. But, your post was more a "this is the way it is" lecture and not a "this is what the community considers respectful" suggestion. GLAAD is a fine source for the latter, not so much the former.

a real woman provides a baby like god intended after sticking in your peen

All I said about GLADD in my original post was this:
This is the source I personally use to double check precisely what you've quoted, that is, "what the community considers respectful". That's kinda my entire schtick here, that one ought to try and be respectful and GLAAD is a great source for learning about that.

I disagree that the fact that they are very aligned with the mainstream (partly because the mainstream has been listening to them for decades) is irrelevant, it helps buoy the legitimacy that this isn't some fringe tumblr blog making up random language, it is actually a pretty widely accepted source of information about what the community considers respectful.

You keep saying it is problematic but you don't say what the actual problem is. What specific harm affecting actual people are you suggesting? Or is it just problematic in some philosophy "metaphysical" way (that you also don't specify, but whatever at this point)?

You also keep suggesting it is faith based. I don't really know what you mean by this or why it is a problem. I believe my wife loves me and isn't just faking behavioural cues for love because our lives are too entwined with young kids to easily leave, but I guess ultimately her feelings are "subjective" (another word you've used without showing why it is problematic) and I take it on faith. Is faith a bad thing?